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| Family Reunion / Henry's Lake, Island Park |
Inconvenient location, forms to fill out, long lines, terrible service; any guesses? I’m headed to the DMV today to replace my stolen license, a license that has been missing since May 22. That should give some indication of how eager I am to do this. In fact, I brought my passport from when I was 2 (had my birth date on it) and my University ID to the last girls night we had so that I could get into a bar. Talk about inconvenient! So this morning I will be preparing myself for my “photo,” one that will last into the next decade, if not lost or stolen before then.
I’ve become a bit of a stranger to pictures, especially if you consider my history. My high school years were spent in a darkroom, mixing chemicals, loading film, and developing pictures as a photographer for the school paper. I also spent time at athletic games and other school functions capturing moments of high school high jinks. Then as a teacher, I was the yearbook advisor at my middle school for 6 years. For many years of my life a camera was pretty much just an extension of my arm.
In the first year of Porter’s life, I went through at least 50 rolls of film. Clint would often joke that we needed to add another line item to our budget for film purchase and developing alone. That wasn’t far from the truth especially if you figure in all the portraits we had taken (3 months, 6 months, 9 months, etc…) In fact, I documented each day of the first 20 days of his life, the entire time he spent at Primary’s in the NICU. That was the first album I did for him and I filled several more after that, diligently “scrapbooking” my way through the next 5 years of his life.
I would always have a camera at different gatherings of friends and family, snapping away to create those perfect memories for future enjoyment. What I eventually came to realize was that my need to create memories was interfering with the actual moment I was supposed to be enjoying.
In the first year of Porter’s life, I went through at least 50 rolls of film. Clint would often joke that we needed to add another line item to our budget for film purchase and developing alone. That wasn’t far from the truth especially if you figure in all the portraits we had taken (3 months, 6 months, 9 months, etc…) In fact, I documented each day of the first 20 days of his life, the entire time he spent at Primary’s in the NICU. That was the first album I did for him and I filled several more after that, diligently “scrapbooking” my way through the next 5 years of his life.
I would always have a camera at different gatherings of friends and family, snapping away to create those perfect memories for future enjoyment. What I eventually came to realize was that my need to create memories was interfering with the actual moment I was supposed to be enjoying.
Fast forward to now. I haven’t done a scrapbook for Parker, not one. I had Parker’s 1 year pictures taken on his birthday, which happened to be the day my wallet was stolen, and I have yet to go in and place my order (also on my list for today). I now often hear “I’m surprised Kellie doesn’t have her camera. She always has a camera.” I have once again become the yearbook advisor, but this time around I forget to bring my camera more than half the time and have to go back to my room to grab it, hoping that I remembered to charge the batteries.
I know when it was that things changed, it started after Parker was born and continued as I went through chemo, surgeries, and recovery for breast cancer. I did document Parker’s early life, he too spent time in the Primary’s NICU. But I did not like the fact that we were having a repeat performance there. To be honest, I was having a difficult time dealing with the fact that Parker had Down Syndrome. I continued to take pictures of his development, skipped the 3 month portraits, but got the 6 and 9 month ones. So I have pictures of Parker’s first year, but none are in an album or scrapbook of any sort.
I know when it was that things changed, it started after Parker was born and continued as I went through chemo, surgeries, and recovery for breast cancer. I did document Parker’s early life, he too spent time in the Primary’s NICU. But I did not like the fact that we were having a repeat performance there. To be honest, I was having a difficult time dealing with the fact that Parker had Down Syndrome. I continued to take pictures of his development, skipped the 3 month portraits, but got the 6 and 9 month ones. So I have pictures of Parker’s first year, but none are in an album or scrapbook of any sort.
Unfortunately, the end of Parker’s first year corresponded with my breast cancer diagnosis and the beginning of my treatments. By his first birthday I was bald. There are very few pictures, comparatively speaking, of our family during 2007. And since then, I have found that I just want to be in the moment and taking pictures seems to interfere with that. Looking through a lens seems artificial to me now, with all the posing and posturing. I often feel like taking a picture stops the momentum of the experience that is unfolding in front of me. I want to see things as they are. I know there is a compromise and I’m searching for it. Photography was a love of mine, not that I hate it now, I just think of it differently. The challenge is being able to create what I really do see in the moments that I see them and for the pictures I take to reflect that. The picture above illustrates what I’m attempting to explain. It is one of the few pictures I took during 2007.
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