I was recently at my grandmothers funeral and came to the realization that approximately 10 years of my life is undocumented.
That may seem like a grandiose statement. However, when I look back for pictures documenting important events that have happened in my life I notice that the images of these events are lacking severely. Yes, we had professional photos taken at our wedding. Additionally, both of our girls have had pictures taken chronicling the first year of their life. What I don't have is pictures of friends coming over for dinner parties. Or shots of my daughters playing with their cousins in our yard. The milestone events are well documented and captured by professional photographers. Midwest life shots has done an AMAZING job at capturing these moments for us. https://midwestlifeshots.com/
When I was at my grandmother's funeral last Friday I was blown away by all of the pictures of her life. It's 2021 and we have phones that take pictures of a quality people would not have believed was possible 10 years ago. But, I have little or no photos of my closest friends and moments together. My grandmother has binders full of pictures of life at the summer cabin in Leland Michigan, days spent at the house in Milwaukee, and trips around the country and to national parks. I have lots of photos of my kids and dogs (which I'm grateful for). But, I hardly have any pictures of my wife and I. Or of all of us spending time with our friends and family.
So, I have decided to make it my mission to capture images of the every day life events with our family and friends (so they can be used at all of our funerals). Doesn't that sound morbid! Really though, that's my motivation for all of this so I should probably just be honest with myself. I've taken some money that I inherited from my grandmother to buy a really nice 35mm equivalent camera (more on that in a different post) and I plan to take a ton of pictures this year. I'm assuming that I won't be good at taking pictures to start... But I'm expecting another 50 years or so of getting better at taking pictures.
I'm not sure how I'll share all of these images with friends and family. I'm certain some of the images will end up here on the blog. Additionally I have plans of printing lots of these pictures out and keeping them at home or giving them to people. There is something different about looking at physical pictures that you just don't get from looking at them on a screen. Not surprisingly, I feel the same way when I read a physical book versus a digital copy on kindle.
Stay tuned for updates on the camera I bought and please check back regularly to see how my photography skills improve. As Brandon Sanderson writes in the Stormlight Archive, "Journey before destination."