memory keeping

One Little Word 2013: Capture

- Mama 4 Comments

A lot of you who were following my blog last year probably remember that I chose a One Little Word last year, inspired by the craze created by Ali Edwards. My 2012 word was Growth, and I feel like, in so many ways, I really did grow a lot in the past year.

I grew with my blog, taking it on as a full-time career and getting featured by Duncan Hines, Jell-O, International Delight, Citrus Lane, and several other brands. I ended up getting over 12,000 new visitors last year alone, and had many people visiting from around the world- 93 countries in all.

I grew with my baking, inventing over 100 new recipes over the past year, and even getting invited to the Duncan Hines test kitchen as a Frosting Creations winner.

I grew as an educator, getting into the swing of where I fit in in terms of homeschooling, and discovering the right curriculum for Zach.

I grew as a mom, figuring out how to create a better routine for Zach, meeting his needs better, and learning how to figure things out.

I grew as a photographer, finding my niche in terms of style, and figuring out exactly how I wanted my photos to look. I also learned how to do better post-processing to make my photographs look as brilliant as possible. I even had a company email me and tell me that my photos were “the most professional in-action shots of their product they’ve ever seen.” Hello, awesome.

I’m not saying any of this to brag. I’m saying that, by focusing on the word “growth,” and focusing on the areas in which I wanted to grow in 2012, I ended up achieving so many of my goals, finding new ones I hadn’t thought to plan for in January of last year, and really, truly, embracing my word with gusto.

And that’s why, this year, I’ve decided to choose a One Little Word once again. This year, my word is…

 

Capture.

(From Unglued, by Lisa Terkeurst)

I want to better capture life. Even with my blog, and even with my improved photography skills, I felt like I failed to capture the day-to-day life that we lived. I captured the big things, yes, but so many little things, like the way Zach’s hair stuck up into a unicorn horn one morning when he woke up, and the day that Zach finally understood the sign language for “all done” were lost to history.

This year, I’m really embracing the idea of capturing. I purchased a smart phone recently (yay! I’ve reached the 21st century!) and got instagram (follow me! @jengerbread88).

I want to photograph more, post more, share more, and remember more.

I’m also trying to do Project Life, a project initially created by Becky Higgins and adapted by hundreds of thousands of scrapbookers, in formats like paper, hybrid, and digital. The concept of Project Life is that you take a few photos a week, put them in an album, and include relevant journaling to capture the every day life of your family. You don’t have to take a photo every day, and you certainly don’t have to work on the project every day.

I can’t guarantee that I’ll make it through the entire year. In January, I start out with a lot of things, feeling very gung-ho, and end the year without it. But this year, I’m looking at it as, every week I DO actually complete is just one more week captured and that’s what my goal is all about anyway.

So here’s to focusing on capturing more than ever in 2013.

Do you have a One Little Word for 2013? What are you planning to focus on over the next year?

Take A Silly Picture

- Mama 3 Comments

These pictures are old. I mean old old. Like, last spring old.

I was going through images that I needed to edit and get moved over to my external hard drive when I found these. They’re adorable, and I distinctly remember that Zach had just woken from a nap about 20 minutes before I took them. Echo jumped up on the bed in order to get some lovin’s from me, and Zach picked up his books. He looked at Echo, patted his butt as if to say “sit,” and started to read his books to Echo.

It was arguably one of the cutest moments I’ve witnessed in my entire life. I couldn’t resist snapping several photos since my camera was right there.

But, since children move and dogs move and I was just snapping away on auto mode, my pictures just weren’t that great. They weren’t lit perfectly, they were a bit blurry, and they just weren’t…. perfect.

I have this habit when I photograph things. I’ll snap about 400 photos of something, and then I’ll open them up and really look at them. I may adjust the lighting, I may tweak them, and I’ll go through and delete every photo that just doesn’t… work. If there’s a blurry patch, it’s gone. If there’s poor lighting, it’s gone.

As I’ve worked on this blog, I’ve tried to improve my photography enough that you can see what I’m doing with the food I’m making or the activity we’re working on in school, or whatever I happen to be blogging about.

The problem is that sometimes this professional side of me bleeds over into my personal life so much that sometimes I’ll ignore a set of photos that are cute, but not perfect. I overlook the fact that with a few minor tweaks and the memory intact, it doesn’t matter if these photos are perfect. It just matters that I’ve captured some sort of memory there.

These photos serve that purpose.

They’re blurry. They’re not perfect. There is no way that I can go back to that day, recreate that scene, shoot the photos again.

I have to live with the photos I got, and honestly, at second glance, they turned out really adorably. I notice that the blur really shows the pace Echo and Zach are moving at. It shows the scene, even if the pictures didn’t turn out perfectly, professionally, well-lit, evenly cropped, nicely framed.

They capture the spirit of my boys, and that’s enough for me.

So here’s what I want to challenge you to do.

Grab a camera. Take a silly photo. Take 10 silly photos. Take pictures of your son, your daughter, your grandchildren, your pet, your husband or wife, your brothers or sisters, your parents, yourself… whoever you want. But capture that memory. Take a bunch of photos. Throw perfection out the window– focus on the memory. If it’s blurry, it’s blurry. If it’s poorly lit, it’s poorly lit. If you get a perfect shot, even better. But focus on getting that memory, if nothing else.

I’d love it if you’d come back and share with me the shot you took, and any story behind the photo. I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with.