For the first 50 years of my life, my perfectionist self mistakenly believed it was all about knowing more, getting it right, planning, attempting to prevent bad things from happening, and keeping all of my chicks in a row. It took me this long to discover that the JOURNEY is all that matters. This quote from Gilda Radner sums it all up:

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.
"


Sunday, January 30, 2011

An Unusual Photo Shoot

I LOVE taking pictures.  I especially love taking pictures of people.  Photography is an art, and portraiture is the art of bringing out the beauty in your subject.  There are many technical aspects of  portraiture that can help make someone look better - the lens you use to take the photo, the lighting, the position of the lighting, etc...    For instance, I took some pictures of my daughter, Annie, last week in the snow.  The snow acted like a reflector, bouncing beautiful light up onto her face to balance out the sunlight from above.



Today I had a photo shoot with a very unusual subject.


She wasn't a typical girl.


She was not having a very good day,  in fact it was one of her worst.


This inspired me to do a really good job today.


I really wanted to make her look beautiful!


She was VERY cooperative and didn't fidget or complain when I asked her to pose a certain way.


I am very pleased to say that I was able to bring out her INNER BEAUTY!


HERE


SHE


IS......



She was kind of shy with a smile reminiscent of Mona Lisa.

                                        She was playful!



                                      She was fashionable.






                                       And she was really cute!




         She did not complain about posing with different props...



                    Sami loved the smell of her perfume.
                         
                     Halle had other things in mind!


Oh,  I forgot to mention one little thing......



She was dead.


After getting home from church today,  I looked out the kitchen window into the yard and saw Halle carrying around a stuffed animal.  She has a stuffed squirrel with a squeaky thing in its tale.  But I hadn't seen it around in a while.  Where did she find it?


It donned on Vance, Adam, and me at about the same time.  That was no stuffed animal!  We ran outside to take a look.  It was a squirrel who had met its master on this beautiful winter day.  How?  Did she fall from a tree as she ran across its branches, taunting Halle.  Did Halle finally catch a squirrel?  It didn't seem to have any obvious trauma.  Was it a stroke or a heart attack?


I felt bad for her, and really wanted to memorialize this fine creature in the way I know best -

                                                PORTRAITURE!




When all was done,  we said a fond good-bye!   But this is not how we will remember her!









                       THIS IS MUCH BETTER!

1 comment:

  1. Gayle, I am laughing and cringing at the same time!
    Weird. Just weird. It's like the blackbirds that just fell from the sky!

    ReplyDelete