I feel guilty about it. I feel guilty when I see dozens of video cameras wielded by proud parents at milestone events like graduations and parties, and even more guilty when I see those cameras at parks or in front yards, pointed at toddlers just learning to toddle. My friends have boxes of home videotapes and now gigabytes of hard drive space that capture every conceivable event in their children’s lives, from birth to first bath to first day of school to first date, and everything in between.

Me? I have one tape. That’s it. One six hour tape, upon which I have copied all of the video I took with my camera from the day I got it until the day I stopped using it several years ago.

I fear that someday my children will wonder why the mother that took a thousand photographs a year almost never turned on the videocamera….if perhaps they will feel that their proms and plays and graduations weren’t important enough…if they will feel cheated of seeing their important childhood memories once again.

One reason is that I had trouble using both my camera and the much larger (at that time) video camera at the same events. But the most important reason is that I simply couldn’t aim the camera and push “record” – because I knew that someday I would have to watch it.

I love taking photographs, because I can study the details in them carefully and bask in the memories that they invoke. But video is different. It’s so…REAL.

Whenever I watch videos of my daughters’ babyhood and childhood, hear their little voices, watch their chubby legs carry them excitedly toward Christmas trees of the past, see them wobble on their first two-wheelers … I feel so overwhelmed with emotion that I have to turn the player off. It’s almost as if they are right there, as if I could reach out and touch them, and yet I know they are gone forever.

This feeling is so powerful that I remembered it every time I reached for the video camera, and I eventually stopped doing it. I know I should do it anyway, at least for the rest of the family. I suppose that lots of people enjoy watching their family videos without sobbing, but I’ll probably never be one of those people.

I hope someday my daughters realize that the reason there is so little video of them is not because their school programs weren’t sweet, or their antics at home weren’t incredibly cute, or they weren’t adored enough to have their every move filmed. It was because they had a Mom for whom those precious memories were already stored where it mattered most. They will have to be the ones do shoot the videos now.

Given all of this, I still need to save those precious tapes, and so I bought a video-to-dvd recorder that I will be using to do it. Now I just have to figure out how to use it. And maybe, just maybe, I will be able to make myself watch them this time. I’m trying hard to keep this quote in my head:

Don’t cry because it’s over – smile because it happened!

LOVE this one – made their mom cry:

Love, love, love repeat clients! I feel like the more I get to know them, the better I can capture images that reflect who they really are.  AND I especially love seeing their children grow! A few weeks ago I got to photograph Miss Luci for her first birthday pictures. It’s amazing to see her walking! Here is a peek at her newborn session just a year ago; wow, did that ever seem like yesterday! Just look at how cute she is, and what a good baby even though it was a little cold outside!

And with her very proud parents -

(family and childrens photographer on location in Bethel Park PA, McMurray PA, and Washington PA)

I have slowly been working towards completing the bunk room for the Granddolls. It really only has the two sets of bunks, a daybed with a trundle, and two cribs in it now. I need to put a wall unit with a television and video game console in there, and some toy storage and beanbag seats. I also have plans for a HUGE picture of all of them over the bunks – I’m talking six feet or so wide. That is definitely on my agenda for June when they are all here at the same time!

But first, I wanted to get the chalkboard wall painted…and Jim did it for me last week. I love it, and I’m sure they will have lots of fun with it when they visit.

I have been blessed to become a part of a great online group of women professional photographers that have been such a wonderful source of support and sharing over the years that I have been in business. Every one of them is so very talented and so unique, and I honestly doubt that I would still be in this business if it weren’t for them. One thing that we often discuss is that running a business focused on family & child photography can sometimes make our creativity feel stale. For example, many parents want classic newborn poses for their child – new to them, but repetitive for us. We want to make sure we stay fresh and inspired so that each session is great!

We have gotten together and decided to inspire one another by challenging ourselves to think outside of our normal style of  “client photography”. Each month we will decide upon a theme and interpret that theme using our cameras. No rules, and anything goes – thinking inside OR outside the box is fine! Our goal is to jump start our creativity and look for new ways to tell a story or interpret an idea through our images.

This month’s theme is “reflection”. I already had the perfect photo. This summer, my friend Steve requested that I try to get an image of him wakeboarding similar to one he had seen in a magazine. It took me some time to decide what I needed to do to get it. We had to find a spot that I could shoot from (NOT from the boat) where the sun would be bright enough to light him up and cause a strong reflection. The water had to be perfectly smooth, which meant as soon as the sun was high enough in the sky and before there was much traffic on the lake. The boat driver had to be able to pull him close to me, and he had to be in the perfect position. It took a few days to get the weather right, and a few tries to get him and me lined up correctly…but it came together in the end!

We have set this up so that you can visit each photographers blog to check out how they saw “reflection” and then click through to the next one at the end of their post – fun! To get started,  to go to Indianapolis photographer Leah Profancik’s  blog