I love my girls.
They are my world.
They are the reason I am still breathing. I am nothing without them.
My wife and I are blessed. They are amazing kids and are becoming amazing women.
I am supposed to write a blog to attract clients. I am trying to attract clients because I am a photographer who needs to work.
For the last 22 years I have been raising my children. Working in the family business (construction) and enjoying the freedom that has given to me.
Freedom to be there for my girls. I was the dad at all the daytime school events. Karate tournaments. Piano recitals, dance recitals. FFA shows. Even every round of every golf tournament when they were in high school.
Sometimes they would tell my wife and I not to go to some event, and you know who was there anyway? Yup! We were. The girls may not have said it, but we could see in their eyes, and body language that they were happy to see us there. Cheering them on. Their biggest fans.
They are off to college now. Both of them. One about to graduate with her Bachelors in Photography. Just like her old man. It’s a proud but scary moment for me.
Why am I telling you this?
Honestly, I don’t know.
Maybe because the girls don’t need me much anymore. The curse of raising the most important people in your lives to not need you. Weird, right? They are fiercely independent and I couldn’t be prouder. That’s just what we do as parents.
Maybe I need something more to photograph? Maybe it’s time for me to return to being a full time photographer.
Maybe it’s time for me to return to who I am supposed to be and share what I am good at with others outside of a close circle of family, and friends.
I don’t know.
Here is what I do know. Raising my girls I got to photograph them in all sorts of situations. I have so many gigabytes of images of my girls that there are many I have never even looked at.
That’s not even including my iPhone photos of them. Or my wife’s iPhone images. We have thousands and thousands of images.
However, the ones I cherish the most are on display on my wall. Or sitting in a frame on my desk. Heck, I have a bunch that aren’t even in frames. They are placed on the edge of the frame partially covering up the photo in the frame behind them.
I guess what I am saying is print your favorite pictures. Yeah it’s great to have them pop up every couple of years on your Facebook memory where you can say “oh I remember that happening”.
A real print of it. You see that one daily. You can actually hold it. Feel it physically in your hand, or stop and look at it on your way to the kitchen. That’s when it really becomes a part of you and your world.
Life is short, no matter how long you live.
