As a child my fascination with photography began with a 4-H project and a pack of disposable fuji cameras, but like many photographers my actual journey with capturing beautiful images began because of the impending birth of my first child. I've had a long standing wonder with beauty and knowing that I was about to give birth lit a fire in me that made me want to bottle every second of life with this new creation. While the auto settings on my camera sufficed for a while I realized quickly that a 'big' camera doesn't make a photographer. My passion quickly outran my ability so I began a long process of learning that continues today (and most likely will for many years!) I took courses, shadowed other photographers, watched videos, read everything I could get my hands on and practiced, practiced, practiced. I've taken thousands of photos of my own family hoping, like most parents, to stop time in some small way or at the very least to aid the failing memory of what we mothers like to call 'mom brain.' Those images are printed memories, helping us to hold the presence of the moment in our hands and carry it into the future in some small way. Taking photos of other people's families has became a sort of ministry to me. There they are living life in all of its messy, unscripted glory and I get to be a part of it for one fleeting moment and, with God's help, create images with them that will bring joy and meaning to their lives for years to come. Photography has given me new eyes. I look at the trees and the sky differently than I did before. Gorgeous light takes my breath away and most importantly, I have learned to glimpse the inherent dignity in every human face.

Y'all. We are so beautiful.

This year, I learned in a new way, the value of those capture memories.

In May of 2015, after a long suffering, my dad passed away. That moment of his death and the following hours was something I'd never experienced before, an emptiness thats hard to explain. Sure its true that he was 'in a better place' and his 'suffering was finally over' but for those of us left behind the pain was just beginning. I remember coming home and watching my kids that evening as if everything were a slow motion movie. I wanted to freeze time with them. I wanted everything to stop for just. one. minute. Later that evening, after the phone calls had been made and the arrangements were set my mom brought in a stack of photo albums for my brother and I to sift through. The 2 hours that followed were the beginning of a journey for me that would help me to find peace in my sweet daddy's death. His sickness had slowly taken him from us for many years but most notably in the last 5 years of his life. With a long, slow, illness like that you don't even notice how this person you've known forever is slipping away. His identity, to me, had become something new in these recent years, something that, while I will cherish forever, was not who he had been for the first 30 years of my life (and the first 70 of his). It happens so slowly that you almost don't notice. But there, in those moments, with those images, I was meeting my daddy all over again. The following days of his wake and funeral, while painful, were also intensely beautiful for me. Not only had we selected many many images that showed the story of his life but we were now accompanied by his best friends and other family members who collectively became the narrator of that same, wonderful story. Men who I had known in my youth as my dad's buddies now took me by the arm and led me to the wall of photos that we had created to tell me 'about the time that' Sammy won the hunting competition, golfed a perfect game, helped a poor, single mom buy a christmas tree for her kids... and hundreds more. These stories from those that loved him most stayed with me in the coming weeks after his death. The reintroduction to the man I had known before Huntington's disease was painful yet incredibly healing. Now, 8 months later those memories live in my heart and in the pictures displayed in my home.

I smile at he and my mothers wedding photo as I gather the laundry.

I laugh at the picture of him as a slick haired teenager participating in a potato sack race that sits on my living room shelf.

And I tell the stories of my childhood to my own children as we look at my first family photo. (This one is my favorite)

In the nursery sits a photo of him as a small boy.

As I rock my baby boy I stare at this sparkly eyed boy with golden curls and wonder about the day this photo was taken. My grandmother must have cherished it as much as I do the images of my own boys now. I think of my future grandchildren staring teary eyed at the many family photos that I've taken long after I'm gone..and suddenly I want to grab my camera and make more beautiful memories. 

Take beautiful photos of your family. (Yes, use your iphone. Yes print them!) Splurge when you can on professional photos. (Those tend to be the ones we frame and keep.) Make more memories. Tell Stories. Laugh. Love. Rinse. Repeat.

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