If there’s one thing I’m passionate about, it’s taking photos and documenting all the beauty in our lives.
It’s all too easy to forget how magical, miraculous and beautiful life is when there’s bad news on the TV, jobs are stressful, and our families experience fights and fractures. Relationships are hard; divorce happens. Parenting in this digital age is tough!
But through it all, nature is above, around and beneath us being amazing and unique, and special. And since we, too, are part of nature – we are all also beautiful in our own way, too.
There are light, sweet and lovely moments in our families that we’ll want to remember forever. And here we all are in our own unique and changing bodies, younger, more beautiful and stronger than we’ll ever be again. So take pictures of it all! I do – with consent, of course – and I delight in it.
Here are my top five favorite reasons to take photos of your life – and to be in as many photos yourself as possible:
5. Your parents and older relatives won’t be around forever. Even if your parents hate having pictures taken, like mine do, believe me when I say that you will regret not taking more pictures with them. Every time they visit us or we visit them, I beg, plead and insist on a few photos of us all together. I also try to take a few candid shots of sweet moments when no one is looking. I will treasure these photos even more when my folks are no longer with us. No one gets out of this life alive, I’m afraid.
4. We won’t always remember the everyday things we take for granted now. Taking photos of fun moments with friends or family, everyday moments with the pets we love and other special times in our lives helps those memories to live on. Life can change in the blink of an eye. Kids grow up, teens go away to college and pets pass on to the rainbow bridge. If there’s something you’re going to want to remember in one, five or ten years, take a picture. Even if it’s something mundane that you see or do every day, take a picture. Your life may not always be the same, and you may look back and think “those were the days.”
3. Vacations to special places are priceless; a pro photo shoot preserves those memories in a unique and special way! I have literally never regretted hiring a professional photographer for a vacation photo shoot. These pictures are some of my favorites of all time! We did this when Zoe was 18 months old in Maui and again when she was 5 in Maui. That time, we had my whole family with us so I insisted on a full family photo shoot. We also did pro photos when E, Z and I were in the Turks and Caicos when Z was 7. I cherish these photos and memories so much. Do this while your kiddos are young and your parents are alive – trust me on this one!
2. Capture your friends in the prime of their life, having the time of their lives. I recently witnessed a friend lose one of her longtime best friends suddenly and tragically to an unexpected illness. My grieving friend shared so many wonderful photos and memories of her late friend on social media that I almost feel I knew her myself. Isn’t that part of how life goes on after we lose someone we love, and how we can keep their memory alive? I would love nothing more than for friends to share photos, memories and stories of me after I depart this mortal coil. If you want to be able to do that for your friends, too, then take photos of them now while you can.
1. Take photos of yourself now. Take selfies. Be in family photos! So many of us moms are absent from our family photos. I know that I would not have any photos of me taken by my family unless I specifically asked; it’s just not something they would think to do. But when I look back at photo albums filled only with photos of my daughter and husband, I know that someone is missing. I’m glad that I finally started insisting on having my photo taken, too! There are many reasons why we might not want a photo taken of ourselves, but many of those reasons are vain and silly. Photos are memories! We deserve to be photographed, and remembered, too.
In the immortal words of Moira Rose from Schitt’s Creen: “Take a thousand naked pictures of yourself now. You may currently think, “Oh, I’m too spooky.” Or, “Nobody wants to see these tiny boobies.” But believe me, one day you will look at those photos with much kinder eyes and say, “Dear God, I was a beautiful thing.”
We are all “beautiful things” in our own way – and one day we’ll look back and appreciate our current physical selves so much more than we do today. We must take photos now to give our future selves something to look back on and admire.
I suppose this entire post can be summed up as Memento Mori, which is Latin for “remember that you must die.” It is precisely because nothing and no one lives forever that we must take photos to give ourselves, our families, our friends and those we love beautiful, tangible memories they can have and hold and look back on when we’re no longer here in person.
Take photos. Be in the photos. And if you ever need someone to take beautiful photos of you, let me know! It would be my pleasure to do that for you.
