The Importance of Pictures

I've known this for a long time, but yesterday it really hit home that I put far too much importance on pictures.  Yesterday, I spent the day chasing pictures and wound up frustrated and short-tempered.

Pictures are my thing.  That's what I tell people.  I love looking at pictures.  It thrills me when my co-workers bring in family pictures to share.  When my children were born, I took lots of pictures of them. I did not want to miss recording anything for posterity. Taking lots of pictures allows for that 1 in a million shot to show up every once in a while when you capture a personality in perfect clarity with a beautiful image.

As the kids got older and changed less over time, I took fewer pictures.  They are tired of them.  With a digital camera, I can cut out the ones that are bad right away and keep taking pictures as I shoot for the perfect shot. When we brought Wyatt home, he was so anxious to have his pictures hanging in the house, so I know that pictures record a history that is important. Because I blog instead of scrapbook now, neither Wyatt nor Julia has had the luxury of perusing albums of their growing up years.  I really need to fix that.  However, my obsession with all these pictures is clearly out of control, and yesterday was the proof.

I scheduled senior pictures for Zach with 3 photographers.  Yes, you read that correctly.  He has to take the school yearbook picture, so I had no choice in that photographer and opted not to buy those.  We have had the same photographer take pictures of our children since Zach was three months old.  I had grand plans to finish up these growing up pictures with him by having him do the senior pictures.  His work is phenomenal, and he captures my children well.  However, when I brought home the price list, Andy vetoed that plan right away.  It was far beyond the already hefty budget we planned for these pictures. Still wanting to honor the friendship we have developed with this photographer over the years, we opted to take Zach there for his formal, tux pictures.  I really wanted this classic picture that marks this milestone, and our other choice for photography does not have a studio.  I will say that while we could not afford to go all out with with our photographer, I do not think his prices are completely unreasonable.  He actually has a staff whom he has to pay.  He has studio expenses.  He is a master photographer with years of experience and training.  He is at the top of his field, and photography is his livelihood.  I want digital images which are too expensive with this photographer, and there are some things that need to be tweaked in order for him to perfectly fit my desires.  I pay the difference for a good photographer because a good one backs up all his files.  If my house were destroyed, I should be able to recover all those professional photos taken over the years because my photographer backs up all his work twice. Zach went for those pictures yesterday, and we will see how they turn out.

In addition to the tux pictures, my desire was to have some pictures taken of Zach on the football field.  He spent and continues to spend much of his high school time there.  I have never had the access to get those photos myself, and I am no pro. Therefore, we also hired a photographer for location shots, and I expect these to be my favorites.  This photographer is a family friend who does photography on the side.  He is also a trained professional who just happened to choose another career to support his family, and I really like his work. He knows Zach and knows Zach's reputation, so he wants to capture that.  We also had those pictures scheduled for yesterday, but they have been postponed due to rain.  It was in our race to that appointment that I realized just how crazy this all is.  We could not find Zach's back-to-back district champ shirt which was important for the pictures because we cannot find the district champ football that needs to be sewn on his letter jacket. I was so upset that we had neither.  Then it occurred to me that the whole point of these pictures is to get a good picture of Zach.  It is not about whether we record for posterity that his team won the district championship twice.  I just want it to be apparent that he played a sport he loves while in high school.  The day was overcast, and we were going for sunset pictures on the field.  You cannot get good sunset pictures on an overcast day.  At first I thought that was not big deal, then I realized that I really want those sunset pictures. Maybe we will get them.  Maybe we won't, but after all, I realized just how selfish all of this is.  I am chasing a picture instead of just enjoying my son. Because of rain, we have to reschedule, so we will watch the weather next week, and if the photographer is available, we will get this done next week.  If the schedule and weather do not cooperate, we will schedule these later.  I am fine with that and have actually wondered if I should have waited for fall.  However, the senior ad is due in mid-October, so I hope to have the pictures in time to choose some for that layout.

Ironically, I remember my own senior pictures.  My disorganized large family complicated that day.  I could not find the shoes I wanted to go with one of my outfits.  My mom did not go with me to the appointment, and I got lost, so I was late. I did not refresh my lipstick and always hated that about those pictures - that and the wrong shoes.  Some things never change.  Now I am the mom who does not have it together for this session. Today, I have no idea where any of my senior pictures are.  My parents paid a lot of money for them, and now they are just gone.  Likewise, Andy gave me the last of his favorite senior pictures, and I have not seen it in years.  I spend all this time backing up picture files and choosing photographers who do that, but my life is not unfulfilled because I have no idea where my senior pictures are.  I love looking at old pictures, but I don't think my kids care if they ever see a picture of me from high school. So it's all much ado about nothing.