Stand

She was bed-bouncing, in and out of the light.

(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Baby Bredon - Two Weeks

(Images © Informal Moments Photography)

Two

I have two now. Two little faces that bear some of my image. Two little hearts to take my heart away. Two sets of needs, two new personalities, two little lives that make up mine. What a happy new way to start a year...

(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

My Baby Is Here!

We're calling him "Bredon" (brEE-dun)

(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

115/365 - dreams remembered

When I was in high school, I used to take long walks with a journal and a blanket and spread myself out beneath a tree on our 25 acres and write and dream and lay back and look up through the leaves. I'm in such a sentimental, weepy mood today after a bout on the couch with Anne of Green Gables, I couldn't seem to find anything to shoot but the simple perspective I used to hold when the world was younger. I don't know about yesterday, or about tomorrow, but today, that blue is gorgeous through the green.

100/365 - some days we are blur

A first-anniversary gift from my husband, a few years old now. The couple clings to each other, not eye-to-eye or nose-to-nose, but always together. Sometimes that is all they need to know.

Fifty-One - Fascination

This image is SOOC (straight out of the camera). I pulled it up in Photoshop to process, and it didn't need any! I'm very excited about this. It means I'm actually learning how to do my job right as a real photographer - I'm not just shooting what could be there and adding it in Photoshop, I am capturing what I see with my heart. And isn't that what any good photographer does anyway?

Forty-Nine - Freedom that is Wild

This morning, I couldn't find a picture to take - nothing was wild enough, crazy enough. dark enough, intense enough. I was doing insane things with my camera settings and nothing felt like enough risk. So I went to play the piano. And tried to sing. Which usually helps. And it didn't this time.

I was ready to burst into tears and start screaming mindlessly when my husband, who had been out grocery shopping, dived into the house carrying a bouquet of spiky wild orange tulips, just in time to hold me while I fell apart in his arms, blubbering nonsense about how he'd love me even if I wasn't everything I wanted to be, how I needed him, how much I loved him too...

This is my moment for today, the one that said, "I'm alive, and I'm free." There is nothing holding me back but me, and even that is released into love...

Tagged in Four

I got tagged today by e.o.w. over at Mindwhisperings, and while I don't usually respond to tagging, she was kind enough to leave a comment about it here, so I thought I'd oblige.

The game is about fours - and a little bit of life. The rules:

1. Go to the 4th folder where you keep your pictures on your computer.
2. Post the 4th picture in the folder.
3. Explain the photo.
4. Tag 4 fellow bloggers to join in the fun!

This is my photo (considering HOW MANY folders I have for pictures on my computer, it was quite the trick picking the most honest one!). The dried rose here is one of my Stonemeadow roses, laid out on my wedding dress on a day when I was down after having Piper. I was playing around and trying to capture the feeling of nostalgia that comes after a wedding, when time has passed and the stressful moments have faded to soft, happy memories, fuzzy around the edges. The dress has a more interesting story - it was the second of four wedding dresses I have owned.

I bought my first dress in January of 2005, before Pete and I were officially engaged. I was under so much stress, and my weight loss told on me - I shrank OUT of the dress. I will always wish I had kept it - I've tried to find it again, but haven't had any luck.

This dress, the one I wore for our wedding, is the one that I will give to Piper someday, to play around in, or to wear herself.

My third wedding dress was for our beach wedding - a fun six-month anniversary photo op in which we played around on the beach with a few close friends and just generally had fun - no stress involved. We forgot the music and the rings and the formality, but we had so much fun! (Photos here from Rob Garland Photographers)

My fourth dress... well, that was just because I'm a girl who can't resist wedding dresses. And it's a favorite. I may do a white dress self-portrait with it one of these days...

So that's my long, rambling story about this photo.

Now, the tagging. I think I will tag Danielle (because I know you have pictures!), Emily (because you've sent so many people over to my blog - this should help with some inspiration!), Laura (because she was so incredibly nice to me today!), and Leeann (because I need to tag her to get photos on her blog anymore!). Have fun, girls!

Thirty-Nine - Catch

This shot was pushing the envelope for me on just about everything: action, blur, framing, timing, and lighting. I did process it a bit for color and sharpness, but overall, I love the result!

Thirty-Four - An Anytime Welcome

This is my unused key to my grandparents' house, a promise for a welcome never needed because they were always there to welcome me. Now they are gone, and the lock this key was meant to open no longer bears their welcome. Though blurring with memory and tears, that last urgent, meaningful "I love you" still turns a key in my heart.

Only By This Death

black and blue
purpling mingled with drying blood that has been wept
red tears falling - fallen -
unseen
'til reflection remembers
as light reveals.

what was
must still be.

life lingers in her death
and now I breathe.

Twenty-Two - Pieces of Me

Yesterday my little girl Piper received a little history of her great-great grandfather, my grandmother's father, from my Aunt Chris, our family historian and all-around-wonderful aunt. Included with the history were some photos of my grandmother when she was young. This morning, I couldn't get this photo out of my mind, the look in my grandma's eyes, the softness that I knew even when her face was far changed. She was young like me, experienced life as I do now, in a different time.

I composed this image with a tulip Piper snapped off the other day, fallen, dried, bittersweet. The man in the photo, blurred behind the flower, is my great-grandfather, who actually lived in Charleston, SC, until he was nine. How strange to think that, in a way, our move here has brought me home.

I had a couple shots that were a bit photographically better today, but this was the one my heart came back to, the one that revealed a summer memory I never lived, the one that took me back to springs and summers and winters and falls with the woman who taught me so much about living, just by doing it, by having done it, the one that reminded me who I am, who my God made me to be.

You know, I have seen that look in my eyes...