Monday, May 2, 2016

Capturing Memories Through the Years

by Terri


I have been taking Ali Edwards’ Lens of Joy online class and it is making me realize (even more than I already knew) how important it is to capture our everyday moments. Classes like this make me wish I had been a scrapbooker back when my boys were growing up, capturing all their moments, big and small. But I am so very grateful that I was a mom who had a camera in her hands most of the time. I have photos of each of them at every age as well as ones of my grandson and I know that’s a lot more than a lot of people have. They are more precious to me than I can say.

I really enjoyed learning about portrait photography over the years of taking my own kids’ photos. But then they grew up and I no longer had portrait subjects under my own roof. I began looking for other things to take pictures of because I still had the love of photography and the desire to keep learning. So my new subject of choice was flowers, specifically cactus in bloom. 


But now I have granddaughters and it’s a whole new adventure capturing girls. They actually WANT to have their picture taken! Not to mention there is a whole lot of pink in my life! Flowers are beautiful but I won't look back at a flower shot in 30 years and feel what I feel when I look at these faces of the people that I love.


If you still have young children at home, I hope you are capturing them at every age and stage, their smiles (in braces and out) and their frowns, their dimples if they have them and their long eyelashes. It all goes by so fast and there will come a day when these photos are more precious to you than you can imagine when you’re in the midst of it.  If your kids are grown, I hope you lucky enough to have these types of photos of them as children. I have had friends who have nothing more than their children’s school photos, and we all know how bad those can be! I can picture sitting in my rocking chair someday with my photo albums in my lap and letting these photos take me back through the years. I want to remember every precious minute. Thanks to photography, I will be able to do just that.


P.S. All of the collages in this post were created at Big Huge Labs. All you do is upload your photos, decide what configuration you want your mosaic to be and hit “create”. From there you can download your creation to your computer – all absolutely free.  Lots of fun!



9 comments:

Carol said...

Boy Terri, I know you love your flowers but I have always thought you are a fantastic portrait artist! your pictures of your beautiful family are stunning and the portraits you took of us in Galveston are each perfect. What treasures you have created!

AFishGirl said...

Great to see these, Terri. Yes, there can never be too many pictures of the people we love. Happy week to you.

Dotti said...

I do love these mosaics! And your message is so important, we can't say it often enough: take pictures to keep the memories, both the people and the activities. I've often said I wish digital photography had been an option when my daughter was growing up. Thank goodness I've had it for my granddaughter's growing up years. One word of caution though: even girls reach a point where they don't want you to take their pictures. So snap those beautiful granddaughters while you can! (I look at that photo of young Jeff and see so much Bob in that face!)

Unknown said...

Makes me happy looking at all your collages - thanks for sharing. They are beautiful!

Cheryl McCain said...

What a meaningful post you've shared today! I wish I had better photos of my own children from YEARS ago. The ones I do have mean so very much to me and then your floral photos and your granddaughter's photos......that's me in a nutshell. I have documented my grandchildrens' lives as much as possible as well as dabble in still life photography. I have 5 grandsons and 1 granddaughter and PINK is a welcome change! This post makes me smile!

Deanna said...

I love this post. Your family with all of the handsome young men and now the darling girls are truly works of art. Love how you have created these wonderful collages. The flower collage is a stunning work of art that shows off your amazing photography talents. Kuddos!!

Cathy H. said...

Terri, wonderful post this morning! I wish I knew then what I know now, that time was moving so fast and pictures would later be treasured. I toke the holiday pictures, the birthday pictures, and the vacation pictures. Those are fine and cherished, but I didn't capture the everyday moments of my children. Part of the reason, of course, was the expense of film and having it developed, but the other part was just not knowing. We always wanted to dress up our family and pose them. I think social media, online classes, and blogs have made us all more aware of capturing those small moments. Thanks for the collage link, I'll be checking it out!

kelly said...

you know you're preaching to the choir right? :) i've been making a conscious effort to capture more faces in my photos this year. (which always sounds strange considering the fact that capturing my loved ones is what got me into this game) but it makes me so happy seeing the faces of my loved ones in my scrapbooks. thanks for reminding me to keep it up! xoxo

Anonymous said...

I love your collages of family and blooming cactus! I rarely get photos of my grown children these days, but still capturing the grandkiddos! Back when my children were little we only had a Minolta with the 35mm film that you had no idea what was on it until you took it in for development lol! Needless to say, we have a LOT of shoeboxes filled with all those precious photos, faded and yellowed but my grandkids love looking thru them! Thanks for sharing a beautiful post!

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