Happy birthday & anniversary to me!

      Today, I am not only celebrating my birthday; I am also marking the anniversary of the day I became a professional photographer!  36 years ago today I photographed my first wedding and launched a career. 
      I was turning 17 and had worked all summer mowing lawns and playing guitar and singing at Jim's Steak House in Pampa to pay my parents back for the new Mamiya/Sekor DTL500 camera that they had bought for me at the first of the summer.  
      I also spent all summer reading the camera manual - and everything else I could find - to learn how to make the camera do what I wanted it to do.  There were no shortcuts or automatic exposure options.  I had to learn how to manually set the camera's aperture and f/stop for the proper exposure and I had to learn how to use an off-camera flash that had to be set manually, too.  Fortunately, film was fairly cheap and processing wasn't terribly expensive either, so I shot film, sent it to a lab, got it back and tried to figure out what I had done right and what I had done wrong.  Then, I would go shoot more film!  Sort of like that whole shampoo ritual - "lather, rinse, repeat."  It was work, but also rewarding and fun! 
     So, when my aunt called me a few weeks before my birthday to ask me if I would photograph my cousin's wedding on August 16, I jumped at the chance.  When you are 16 going on 17, you think you can do anything!  I now realize that it had little to do with my wonderful photographic ability.  I got hired because I had a camera and I was cheap! 
    Obviously, I didn't really know what I was doing, but I learned by taking classes and working for other photographers.   I improved my skills and eventually launched my own business.   Looking back, I am grateful for that first opportunity.  I love my profession and I love that I have been so blessed over the last 36 years.
     Thanks to all of you who have allowed me to be your photographer!  I look forward to many more years helping create precious memories just for you!

Purpose-driven Photography

      My brother called me last week to tell me about an online story that he had read about the importance of photography in recording history.  I am not certain that I found the exact same article, but in my surfing around I did find this quote at   http://www.goshtac.com/history.html :

"As dedicated photographers we must understand our place in recording the history of people and places that we photograph.  Photography is not just about today, but is a recording of our times so that future generations can look back and learn about their past.  It is a legacy we leave to our future children and grandchildren. We must keep that in mind as we view and photograph the world around us."

       Digital photography has given us a world where we can have instant gratification.  I can take a photo and see it immediately!  I don't have to wait till the film is developed and returned from the lab.  How much fun is that?!?  I can send the image quickly from my computer to my friends so they can see the beauty I have captured.  And, I can shoot picture after picture after picture on my memory card and store them on my computer without the expense of having prints made.  Bur should I?
     "Photography is not just about today....." and yet that seems to be the main focus of most photographers now.  Most seem to take little thought about the real purpose, the real value of photography.  They simply snap away, load the images on their computers, apply some cool effect in PhotoShop, and post them for their friends to see on Facebook or other social media.  This is great, and allows us to share our lives with each other now, but what about later?
     Are we passing our history on to future generations?  Will we even be able to share the photos we are taking today in a few years.  What happens when your computer crashes or when your cd gets scratched or lost or when your memory card fails?  
      Technology is fantastic, but it changes quickly.  What will happen to your treasures when it does?  CD's and DVD's are known to last 10 to 20 years, computer hard drives crash and lose data, memory cards fail,  new technology replaces old every few years, but photographic prints can last over 100 years.  
      How important are the family photos you are taking today?  How available will they be in 20 years or 50 years?  Photographs are treasures of the heart, a "legacy that we leave to our future children and grandchildren."   Where is your legacy?

Give one heart; get back two

     Twenty three years ago today, I lost my heart.
     I lost it to a little 8 pound 11 oz newborn named Timothy Shane Stevens!  All he had to do was grab my little finger and look into my eyes and I was a complete goner. Till that moment,  I never knew just how much you could fall in love with a child or how much joy a child could bring to your life.  It is a moment that I will never forget! 
      At 23, Tim is still a joy for me!  I have loved watching him grow into the strong man that he is today.  It has just happened so quickly.  Yesterday, I was snuggling with this tiny, sweet baby.  Today, I am talking on the phone to a tall, handsome, kind man.  A man who loves his wife, is passionate about his dream, and works hard to be the kind of person he should be.  A man who has faced tough times and big obstacles, but is still standing strong. I am proud of him and look forward to seeing all that he is able to accomplish and become!
     Yes, I miss that tiny baby, the rambunctious toddler, the funny teenager, and Tim at every age in between. I miss kissing his fuzzy head when he sat beside me on the sofa watching TV.  I miss the long, face-to-face talks that  we had for many, many nights when he was in junior-high and high school.  I miss his hugs now that he is in too-far-away Dallas.  But, all those memories make me smile.  They are a treasure that I carry with me every single day. 
     Happy birthday, Tim!  I love you more than you can ever know! 

Mom

Ireland, Thin Places, and Beauty

     One year ago today I was in Ireland.  I wish I was still there! 
     My trip to Ireland was a dream come true for me and my friend, Rhonni.  We had been talking about going to Ireland for ten years - dreaming, planning, saving.  Every year that we thought we could actually make the trip happen, something would come up - the proverbial bump in the road - that kept us from fulfilling the dream.  Finally, we made the decision that 2010 was the year.  We would go to Ireland ... and we did.  It was fantastic and even more beautiful than I had imagined.  Cool, green, and stunning.  I imagine that heaven will look a lot like Ireland!
     Obviously, one of the reasons that I loved Ireland was the amazing beauty, but another reason that I loved it had less to do with the things that I saw with my eyes and more to do with what I saw with the spiritual connection that I found there.  That concept is a little difficult to explain, but I will try.
     Ireland for me felt like home, even though I had never been there before.  In the ten years that we were planning the trip, I did some reading about Irish history, St. Patrick, and Celtic Christianity.  In my reading, I found an ancient Celtic concept known as "thin places" - places where the veil between the world we see and the Other World is thin.  Places where we can "see" into another world that we miss because we are wrapped up in our day to day living.  Ireland was like that for me.  The trip allowed me to step out away from my daily grind and experience a new world - a world of beautiful creation, a world where I could just be, and could enjoy that beauty.  I wanted to stay in that place forever, but could not.
     Or could I?  Maybe the point is not that the thin places are in Ireland, but that there are thin places all around us.  We just don't see them because we don't take the time.  Maybe I miss the thin places that are there when I am talking to a friend or having a phone conversation with my son because I am too worried about all the other stuff I need to be doing.  Maybe I miss the thin places that exist in my surroundings because I am grumbling about the heat or the cold or whatever else I am focusing on. 
    Seeing the thin places allows me to see the beauty that is here and helps me see what truly matters.  I need to look for those places every day.
     Seen any thin places lately?

Historian of the Heart

     Often, someone will ask me how I got into photography, and I find that question somewhat difficult to answer.   I do know, however, why I stay in photography.  Strangely enough, the reasons I keep doing photography have very little to do with loving photography itself. (Even though, I do love the art and science of photography.)  The reason I continue to work as a photographer is that photographs allow us to connect in ways that we would miss if we didn't have our photos. 
     Here is a story that illustrates what I mean.  When I was younger, this portrait (above) was hanging in my grandmother's house.  It was one of those old Victorian portraits - oval, convex, and framed in an ornate oval frame under bubble glass.  I loved looking at this photo, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why we had this huge picture of the cough-drop-box guys  hanging on the wall.  (For those of you who don't remember Smith Bros. cough drops, the Smiths looked a lot like this photo.)  Finally, I asked my grandmother about the portrait, and she explained that this photo was of her twin uncles who fought on opposite sides in the Civil War.  After the war, they were so angry with each other that they didn't speak to each other for 20 years.  Eventually, one of them decided that being brothers was more important than anything, so he wrote to his twin wanting to reconcile.  The other brother agreed to meet in a centrally located town.  When they met, they were dressed the same, their hair was cut in a similar fashion, and they both wore beards. (Still looking like twins even though they had not seen each other in twenty years!)  To commemorate the occasion, they went to a local photographer who created this portrait - a portrait that allowed me to learn a part of my family history that I might have missed.
     You see, this portrait connects me with my heritage and will continue to connect future generations to the legacy that is our family history. Old photographs do that for us, but portraits also connect us to the present.  When we display portraits of our families or our children, we are saying that  we are proud of them and that we love them. These photographs show who we are and what is important to us.
      Of course, those family portraits we treasure now will someday connect us to the future, passing on our legacy to those who come after us.
     That is why I am a photographer -a historian of the heart who desires to create personal works of art that will be cherished for generations to come.
     What will your legacy be?

~ Vondel ~