Friday, March 26, 2010

Moments in Time

You Capture is featuring "Moments" this week... and this is something so near to my heart. The whole reason I photograph my family is to capture the moments which would be lost in the mundane. And there is a lot of mundane.



But the difficulty I continuously have is showing that although we have some great moments... moments of glory... moments where we are close to touching heaven...



Where life is happy and you can practically hear the angels sing...



Most are closely followed by moments of sheer chaos. Crying. And melting down. By both the children and myself.


So the next time I show you the really fun photos of my adorable children... just remember it is JUST A MOMENT in time. And a few minutes later, everything probably fell apart. Like what happened right after these photos when I had 4 little ones ages 3 and under crying hysterically because it was time to go home for lunch.

And thankfully, that is a moment too.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

A Blast From the Past

Recently I organized my digital photos. I sorted the thousands upon thousands of photos into folders by year, then month. I will say that there are many fewer photos before my wonderful husband bought me my much beloved camera. But that is beside the point.

I was doing it manually, and it was taking forever. Then I had an "Aha" moment. (otherwise known as a "You are so stupid for not seeing that earlier... moment.) My Canon Zoom Browser program has a button to push to sort everything by year, and month, and date. Wow. Saved me about a bazillion hours. Because I have so much time on my hands, you know.

So if you have been wondering how to sort your digital photos, that's how I do it. For the past couple years I have also been pulling my favorites out and making a photo book online. Then I order three... one for us, one for each of the sets of grandparents. It's wonderful.

So anyway, this evening I was sitting at my computer, and decided to see what we were doing on this day in other years. Here's what I found. Boy can you tell the difference in the quality of digital photos as the twelve years have gone by!

These were from March 24, 2001. We went to a little gym thing that was near our base in Japan with my friend Asayo and her son Kai. He had a birthday just a week earlier than Josiah. Or was it a week later? Can't remember. They were close in age, though. We had a great time with Asayo and Kai.









These next three were all in March of 2002.

Eric and Emma



4 of the 5 children we had then.



And the girls and I... I was skinnier then. And had big glasses.




This is one of my favorite photos ever. I know it is blurry and washed out, but it shows the children's personalities... this is Anna and Emma in 2005.



And another favorite from March 26, 2005



We have no photos at all from March of 2006, and only 6 from 2007. That is after Mercy was born and we were just starting out with her medical journey. March of 2009 we were in the midst of 6 weeks straight of illness... not too many photos of kids then either. They were too busy throwing up.

This year's March had our trip to the beach, and so far not many photos since then. We have been busy trying to get back in the swing of school (difficult to say the least), working in our garden (2 more boxes added this year... I promise photos are to come), and fellowshipping with wonderful friends both new and "old". It has been a wonderful month, just not much photographic evidence thereof.

So I encourage you... organize your photos, and every once in a while go through and see where you have come from. I've had a nice walk down memory lane.

Now I wonder if I can find Asayo...

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This post has been linked to:

http://www.petersonclan.com/2010/03/blast-from-past.html