Get in the Picture!

This past Christmas I decided to take on a project as a gift to my siblings. A few years ago when my mom had to go to the nursing home and we were cleaning out her house, I became the keeper of the family photos. There were pictures of my parents when they were younger, my dad in the Air Force, and a slew of photos of all six kids in various stages of childhood. I was going to scan the pictures into my computer, put the file on a flash drive and Google drive, and give my siblings a copy. This sounded like a good idea until I got out all the albums. I had to take them out of the pockets, scan them, crop and label to the best of my ability. Mom was not a good organizer. One page had pictures from 1957, 1968, 1986, and 1973. There was no rhyme or reason and many weren't marked with a year. After working for several days, over 18 hours of work, I realized the settings were wrong and it scanned too small. Since it was 4 days to Christmas they all got rain checks until I could rescan it all. I did complete it and everyone was happy.

One thing I noticed as I was looking at the pictures was that my parents weren't in many of them as we were growing up. We didn't have family photos with our parents. I found many with all six kids, but only some candid shots with Mom or Dad. Like most families, Mom was the one behind the camera, capturing her kids playing in the little pool or opening Christmas presents. Every so often she caught one of us sitting with Dad. I was able to find only a few with my mom posing or holding one of her babies.

As I grew up I received a camera as a gift. Remember, this was in the "buy film and pay to have it developed" era of photography. I used my allowance to buy the roll of film to take anywhere from 12 to 24 pictures. Since I had to also pay for developing, I was very careful when I pointed and clicked. I wanted to make sure to get a photo of each of my family members, many times catching them in surprise situations. It was during this time I captured more images of my parents, but I became the one in fewer photos.

Once I got married and had kids I took many more pictures, using several different types of cameras. I think I have a picture of my first daughter in every outfit she wore the first few months of her life. But as the number of photos increased, the percent of pictures that included me decreased. I did try to get snapshots of Maddy with the girls or while on vacation, but he didn't like his picture taken.

After a few years, Maddy finally noticed I was usually the one with the camera. He began to take pictures of me and the girls while on trips or during special occasions. He didn't even complain (too much) about having to take family pictures each year for our Christmas cards. I explained to him that documenting our lives was important. I wanted my girls to be able to have pictures of our family through the years.

Retraining a man's brain is a delicate process. (I can hear a faint "Amen!") It took me years to finally get Maddy to stop putting up his hand or turning his head if I wanted to take a picture of him. I sometimes had to catch him on the side or the back, but I did get some candid shots. Although, he had no problem with me taking pictures of him and his catch from fishing trips! In the last few years, with the girls grown and the two of us doing more things on our own, I explained to him how important it was for me to have pictures with him. I wanted to document our life together and some day the photos would be all that was left. He didn't want me posting them to Facebook, but he never knew since he wasn't on it. :) I finally got him to take selfies with me. I have pics from hiking trips, Thunder games, a ski lift ride, and many spots on vacations. These show how much fun we had together and I love looking at them and remembering.

Now I am so thankful that I kept pressing him to get in the pictures. These funny, happy, silly photos are evidence of our life together and our love for each other. They are what I look at to remember and laugh. They are what I stare at and remember and cry. They tell the story of a life well lived and well loved.

So, don't shy away from the camera. Don't be afraid to stop a total stranger and ask them to take a picture so you can be included. Don't worry about your hair, make up, clothes, or if you look fat. Smile. Laugh. Hug, Kiss. Make a silly face. Just get in the picture!