Back in college, my parents gave me a wonderful present of a nice SLR Canon camera. I had never had more than just a point and click camera and I would say that this is the point when my love for picture taking really took off. Prior to my Canon, I had done some artsy pictures, but this opened up a whole new world for me. I am so thankful that my parents saw my potential and bought me a gift that represented what I could become. My early picture taking involved lots of nature shots and experimenting with the world around me on film. I also remember taking pictures when my friends would get together and I always tried to get as many with different people as I could. I wanted to be able to document the memory and have a collage of friends represented in my scrapbook. My friends were a special part of who I was and it was nice to have them forever represented in my memory books. My college scrapbooks are very full! Then came the dating and engagement stage of life. This point of my picture documentation was not too different from college, except that the group of friends spread out around the country and now I was more limited in who was in my photos. But this was also a great time to once again focus on natural shots and things in the world around me. The purchase of a new lense somewhere along the way also opened the door again to new possibilities.
After marriage, we were probably less active with friends and more comfortable staying at home together and enjoying our new stage of life. The subject of most of these photos became one of three things....places we visited, each other, or the dog. I even had an entire album develop at this time for our puppy. We love our doggies and it showed through our love for taking their pictures.
Then came human children. And here is where the biggest change happened. I guess it was a gradual evolution, but I laugh as I think about what I used to have in my albums. Friends, nature photos, cool shots of buildings and animals, our dog....but now we have multiple albums dedicated to our child. For almost a year, the albums on my computer were labeled based on Danny's stages of development. I have since started labeling based on seasons and places we visit, but would you believe that every photo is still of our son? I am not saying this with anything but joy over being able to capture the cute things that Danny does, but for goodness sakes, he monopolizes the album. On our smugmug website, the Spring 2008 http://gaskills.smugmug.com/gallery/4533119_gwrEp#272596802 album currently contains 66 photos of Danny. Scott is in a few, but I am sure it was by accident. He just "happened" to be in the cute shot of Danny I was taking. Pollack made an appearance in a few photos and there are a couple of some ducks we were watching. Pictures of mommy....zero. I don't want this to sound like complaining, because it is a general rule that I choose to be behind the camera, not in front of it. I don't really like most pictures of myself, but it would probably be a good idea to be in a few photos. I don't want to look back years from now and have to try and remember if I was even there. So, a new goal of mine is to make sure I get in a few shots. Maybe when this new baby is born, I will "accidentally" be in the picture, since I will be giving birth to the little munchkin. I think we are due for a family photo shoot after baby #2 is born.
So, parents, I am sure you have all experienced this evolution of photos in your life. And it is with complete joy and excitement that we take each photo of our child. Years from now, I will be so glad to have these pictures of Danny eating cookies and hitting golf balls. But things sure have changed. Aren't we blessed?
btw: The Puppy album on my computer hasn't been updated in a few years....poor Pollack. It is hard to become second in line behind the children. But he isn't complaining, because as mentioned in an earlier post, he loves the dropped food and new friend to throw the ball.
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