Life in Frames......

My Christmas Portraits of the kids

are done!!!

This was a multi-hour ordeal

beginning with

getting four reluctant kids

clean and dressed

at the same time

on their day off from school!

They knew it was coming though,

so I was met with minimal complaints.

We set the studio up

downstairs and

shot for about 45 minutes.

Not too painful.

As I was prepping the kids for this shoot,

I was thinking of family portraits

of Christmas past.

My earliest memory is not from the actual

events, but instead from reliving it through photos.

When I was very young, we lived in Maryland

with both sets of grandparents and

lots of family close by.

Holidays were big events

with all of us in attendance.

Over the years,

I've leafed through lots of family photo albums

full of the kind of photos you see on

nostalgic and hilarious

greeting cards now-a days.

I recall looking at photos of each

cluster of my immediate and extended family

gathered awkwardly around

a Christmas tree that was sparkling with way too much

silver tinsle.

Huge colored lights glowed from the branches

creating strange hues on the faces

of the people in the photos.

Of course we all had red eyes and silly

out of focus grins in every shot.

I remember seeing myself as just a toddler

all dressed up in a fancy Christmas dress,

my eyes glowing red from the flash

and sitting on my grandfather's knee with my cousins

in one of the photos.

Even if the photos were blurry and the

lighting all wrong,

those memories are precious.

Grandpa is gone now

and Grandma joined him this year.

How sad it would be for those memories

to fade away through the generations.

I'm so thankful that someone was

there with a camera in the room

during those holiday gatherings.

And so, it is for this reason

that I torture my kids

as often as I can

by pointing my lens at their ever changing faces.

Family gatherings aren't the same for my kids

as they were for me growing up.

For almost 17 years,

the Navy has taken us on our own adventure

and when we have gatherings with family,

it is usually the only time we are seeing them

that year or in several years.

It is hard to be so far away from those we love

not just during the holidays,

but every single day of the year.

So much life happens between visits.

That is another reason why I am not shy

about having my camera with me every where I go.

It mortifies my kids sometimes

when I choose to pull it out in public,

but there are people that love them

who are thousands of miles away.

And those people need to see

glimpses of our everyday life

so that we can stay connected.

The tag line to my business is "life in frames".

And to me, that's what my photography is.

Telling the story of our lives frame by frame.

I do it so that our "far away" family

can feel like they had a little part

in seeing my kids grow up

and so that someday,

my kids will be able to pull out a photo book

or CD,

and share their lives with their own kids

who will probably roll their eyes and fein boredom,

but that's OK.

It will mean something to my kids.

And just so you don't think it was easy.........

Don't forget to take your camera out this Christmas

and tell your story!!

Many years from now

someone is going to be thankful that you did.