A new love

There are many types of love in this world; love for God, love for your spouse, love for your child, love for a friend. And I am discovering a new one: love for photography. Now, those of you who know me and know how my face turns a pale green every time Dan mentions another piece of gear he can't live without may very well be surprised. And, true, I don't love photography the way Dan does - he loves the technical aspect of it, the ISO-Aperture-Focal Length-Off Camera Flash-Noise Ratio part of photography. He also loves the artistic nature of it. Dan looks at photos the way an Engineer/artist looks at photos. He enjoys the challenge of getting all the technical variables lined up correctly, in addition to framing the picture just right in order to get that great shot.

No, this is certainly not the part of photography I am falling in love with - which is to say, I am not a photographer. I've been thinking over the weekend about what it is about photography that I love, and it is hard to describe. I think what I love is giving people pictures, of themselves, their family, or their children, that bring joy to their hearts because they look at the photo and see the beauty of the person truly captured there. They think, YES, that is exactly the person that I love! Most point-and-shoot photos fail to really give you the ability to look at yourself and say, "yes, that's me, and I'm beautiful!" Or, "yes, this is my child, don't you agree that she's the most amazing thing in the whole universe? Can't you just see from this picture how her joy lights up the world?" And I love that Dan and I are able to give this to people. (Okay, pretty much all the talent and effort regarding the actual photos belongs to Dan, but I think I am beginning to enjoy it just as much, in my own way).

This weekend we went home to Redlands for Thanksgiving. My mom cooked up a storm (without, by the way, a working refrigerator... Take That Rachel Ray!). We also took the opportunity to hook up with my friend Kimber from high school to do a photoshoot with her family. "A friend from high school" is a pretty loose definition - Kimber and I went to Elementary School, Junior High, and High School together; we swam on the swim team and ran on the cross country team together; we became Christians more or less together; we even worked together as lifeguards over the summer. In fact, to this day, sometimes when I'm out running near the top of a hill, wanting to stop, I can hear Kimber's dad cheering for me in my head - he never missed a cross country meet! Our paths diverged when we went our own ways to college, but thanks to Facebook we've gotten back in touch and Kimber is the one who encouraged me to sign up for the Carlsbad Half Marathon in January. She has an absolutely beautiful 2 year old daughter named Reese. It was a pleasure to shoot her family!