Take Pictures, Capture Moments, Preserve Life

    So very often, when I go out on any kind of occasion, no matter how insignificant, I'll grab my camera to bring along. Sometimes I will end up taking hundreds of pictures, other times I won't shoot a single frame. However, I hate if there is ever a moment when I have something I desperately want to take a picture of, and I'm found without my camera. I've been like this for years, ever since my Mom gave me disposable cameras to toy with as a child. Every once in a while, I'll get in the mood to look at old pictures from my childhood, and reminisce about how easy life was back then. Today just happened to be one of those days. However, I thought to myself...what if my house went up in flames? I know that's an awful thing to be thinking about, but seriously. My Mom has dozens upon dozens of photo albums that piece together my history. If they were all lost, there would be no record. Nothing to pass on to my children. So, I decided to start the very long and ongoing task of scanning in the best and most important of these pictures, starting from when my parents first married, up until the digital age when all pictures started being kept on computer files.
   There's something so soothing about looking through childhood photos. Maybe it's because I can look into my eyes as they were once carefree and full of possibilities. Perhaps it just brings me back to some of my fondest memories. Regardless of the reason, they never fail to make me smile and feel a wave of serene contentedness wash over me. I feel so lucky that my parents documented how I changed over the years. From when I was a baby and I looked like a sack of potatoes, through round faced toddler-hood. I can watch as my face matures to look more like my Mother's every day.
   My parents were like me, they would document any occasion. From trips to Disney World to trips to the apple orchard. From when they got a new cat to when the new cat got stuck inside my Dad's shoe. These are the little moments that would have been lost in history if a camera had not been in my Mom or my Dad's hand. So if you ever see my carrying around my big and clumsy camera on a seemingly ordinary day, keep in mind that I am just trying to preserve my life. I know for a face that I will never again look the same as I do today ever again. Each day I grow older, I change, and moments pass that will never come back. I love reliving moments of my past almost as much as I love looking forward to moments to come in the future.

 Me and a Chicken

Possibly My Favorite Picture of All Time

My Dad Loves My Mom