I am a photographer. I love to capture the moments that families spend together. I want them to have a real reminder of who they were, what they felt, and what they did at a particular moment of their lives. My clients hire me to photograph them laughing, sharing hugs, having a special moment together…
But these are not the only special moments in a family’s life. I might even venture a guess that the most special moments will happen at unexpected times, when no one is watching, and the memories will stay with them long after the moment has ended.
I am a photographer. I try very hard to make “pretty pictures”. I know how to interpret light, adjust my camera settings, and choose a lens so that the resulting image is the best it can be. But you know what? The fanciest camera in the world and all the knowledge I could ever learn doesn’t mean a thing if I don’t take pictures of the moments that matter the most to me. And those moments aren’t the times when my daughter looks right at the camera and smiles. (That’s cute! No doubt about it! But it’s not that moment that I cherish.) The best photographs are the ones when I am lucky enough to be a casual observer into their lives, finding them doing the things they love and being exactly who God created them to be.
YOU ARE A PHOTOGRAPHER. Whether you have a point-and-shoot camera, a camera phone, a DSLR, or a 35mm film camera, you are a photographer. You hold the power to capture the images, long after the moment has ended. You can preserve the moment long after the memory has faded. Photographs show us who we were, how we felt, and what we did. They are indelible proof that we were here: we laughed, we tickled, and we played. We took time to smell the roses and play in the rain. We had our messy moments and our unhappy moments and sometimes life surprised us with the hand we were dealt. But we were here, and we had each other.
Save your moments of each other. It doesn’t matter if the picture is perfect. If it tells your story, then it is perfect.