Every day, moments come and go only to be lost in the chasms of our brains. Sometimes it becomes a memory but often times it’s simply gone.
The way your daughter’s loose tooth wiggled and the way she squints her eyes so tight when she smiles, the smell of your mama, the way it felt when your daddy squeezed you with his strong arms. The season when all they would wear was a super hero cape and worn out boots, that time it was so hard to stay married but you did. These moments come in and out of our life and we try to grab hold of all we can but we can only hold so much.
When I first started photographing families 15 years ago, my goal was to have everyone still and smiling. I searched for days for interesting backgrounds and used props to add interest. People hired me yearly to catch that Christmas card picture and it was sweet and beautiful.
It was about 4 years ago that I woke up and realized there were tons of photographers that could capture that Christmas card picture, but I had a gift for seeing and holding these fleeting moments that go unnoticed and I needed to use it. So I do.
I do and it fills me right up and every time I deliver an album and I know that those photos will be loved. But that a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now they will be held and cried over with big happy tears. I know they will bring back a rush of emotions felt during that little sliver of life that passed so quickly.
So what are you waiting for? Are you waiting to loose a few pounds, or for Ella’s tooth to grow back in? Are you waiting for the time that will not come when you don’t have any unexpected bills to pay? Are you waiting till you aren’t fighting with your spouse, your teenager doesn’t turn their back on you, or a season when you aren’t tired in your bones?
The time is now. The season that will bring you to your knees when you sit, wrinkled and longing, over your worn out album is now.
I realize that this strange year is the time we most need to document and yet it’s the time when money is the tightest. In holding onto the value of my work, instead of offering mini sessions I want to offer a payment plan for anyone that longs for these images and yet can’t imagine making it work. I want to make now a possibility. Photos can be taken now and payments made in the months following.
The power of the fleeting is now.
www.helenjoy.com
