pho·to·jour·nal·ism
ˌfōdōˈjərnəˌlizəm/
noun
the art or practice of communicating news by photographs

Okay, okay so photos of my kids and our life may not exactly be “news” but they do tell a story. I’m sure my friends on social media get sick and tired of me flooding their news feed with a bazillion photos of my kids, especially in the last few months. What can I say? My kids are cute and they’re always doing cute things. I’m proud of them, sue me! Sorry, not sorry. lol Imagine all the photos I take and DON’T post! There was a time not so long ago that I didn’t take my camera anywhere. It’s big, bulky, and heavy so if I was going to snap a photo, I relied on my trusty iPhone camera to capture the moment. Fine in a pinch for a quick snapshot but the problem with iPhone photos is that they are great for Instagram and other social media sites for quick posting but in reality, they are grainy and poor quality. Really how often do you print your iPhone photos? When my mother in law passed in August and we were searching for photos for the slideshow for her services, I didn’t have a single photo of her with my kids that wasn’t a grainy cell phone photo. I can’t get that time back. I will never have those moments back. Why didn’t I take more photos? Why didn’t I capture the way she liked to play baseball in the yard with the family or the way she liked to fish on the river? Why didn’t I capture her smile when she would throw her head back, slap her knee, and laugh? Or the way the kids would light up when she read Jingle to them at Christmas time. I would give anything to go back and have my camera to capture the little things. Looking through those old grainy cell phone photos made me realize the importance of carrying around that big bulky thing for 2 reasons.
1. Life is short. Those you love won’t be around forever and all you’ll be left with are those memories, those photos.
2. Kids, they aren’t kids forever. I recently made a comment to my Dad about how I couldn’t believe my baby girl was 3 already and he said, “how do you think I feel? My baby is 30 and has her own babies!” Woah. Really? It goes by that quickly? Yikes!

I’m going to blink one day and my babies will have babies of their own. There’s so much I want to remember about their childhood. Like what T looked like leading her horse to pasture by herself for the first time at her riding lesson last summer or the longhorn balloon hat she picked when we went to he Fort Worth Stockyards over spring break.

or the pouty face A makes when she’s overly tired and not getting her way or the pure joy on her face when she’s at the park swinging or sliding.

I want to remember forever P’s love for animals and how she just has a way with them or what she looked like sitting on the bench at soccer taking a break and waiting for coach to call her back in. Always with her shoe untied! lol

So how do you know what to include in your photos? Ummm… well, EVERYTHING that means anything to put it simply. Or not so simply. Remember, there aren’t any rules to memory catching. Your subjects don’t always have to be posed, smiling, looking at you, or even facing forward for that matter! Some of my favorite photos are of the back of my children’s heads. Like this one of P & A fishing together last summer.

Get up close and personal! Zoom in, catch the details even if you don’t get any faces in the shots. Last summer after my Mama in law’s funeral, we all spent a week at the family ranch together. The kids loved playing down in the meadow and by the creek skipping rocks and catching roly polys. They spent the week with dirty fingernails having the time of their lives with tiny bugs in their tiny hands.

Pay attention to your surroundings. Over Spring Break, the girls and I hit up the zoo. While there, we rode the train to the wild west area. Normally, I would just snap a photo while I sat across the train from them but then I wouldn’t remember what the train looked like or what it was called. For this shot, I choose to snap the photo before I boarded the train while the other passengers were still loading. This way, I’ll always remember our ride on the yellow rose express. Because at one point, my grandkids will be flipping through a photo album and ask “Grandma, where were you? Why are you on a train? What color was it? What was it called?” Because that’s just the sort of thing kids ask. lol

My final tip to you is to pay attention to your angle. I snapped these tonight at P’s soccer game while A was playing on one of the smaller goals behind the field. The one on the left was shot with me standing like normal over her and looking down. You see the grass and that she’s sort of swinging from something but you’re not real sure what it is or where she is. It doesn’t tell a story. For the one on the right all I did was squat down till I was at her level. You can tell just by glancing at it that it was taken at soccer fields and that she is more than likely swinging from a goal post.

Remember these things when recording memories of your cuties even if all you have handy is your trusty iPhone. A well executed iPhone photo is better than no photo at all.

My absolute final tip to you is don’t always hide out behind the camera. Jump in front too! Have someone take a photo of you with your kids. Take a selfie, heck, photobomb them! You’re not getting any younger either people! I may need to take my own advice a little more here. I don’t know about you, but I love looking a photos of my mom and my grandmother from when she was younger. Checking out her goofy glasses or seeing the shifting fashion trends. So get out there and get in those frames mamas!

Happy snapping! ❤