Christmas Spirit
I am in the Christmas Spirit, although I usually am but now is the time it is acceptable to those around me to hear me sing Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la. I wanted to quickly catch up on my blogging because it is a week and a half till Christmas! This is my favorite season, my favorite holiday and I love seeing it through my daughter’s eyes and my husband and I try to create traditions and special memories that she will always remember. It also means that mom is trying not to be too crazy with the camera so I can be in the moment with them.
This is also the season where we realize how much we have…health, a warm, dry place to live and lay our heads…food to eat (and negotiate how much is enough each meal for my daughter to be done and excused)…and most importantly the love we have being a family and being together. We are lucky to have these..the most important things in our lives and knowing that all the Frozen toys and princess costumes don’t mean anything, what we want is the smiles and giggles and hugs.
I pride myself that as a photographer, I love the candid moments and capturing today’s moments to create tomorrows memories. Looking back at my year of families that allowed me this honor…these moments bring smiles to my face and heart as I hope they do for them as well. It also makes me thing back over a year ago when I was in communication with a young single mom of an infant and wanted to do photos of and with her son. We were in the process of scheduling when she un-expectantly passed away. There isn’t a moment that goes be that I don’t wish we had the opportunity for her family and her son to have at least that half an hour so they could look back at that time. That experience still haunts me and what drives me to encourage parents to be in the pictures with their kids – at least a few of them (despite their protests of not being dressed right and this is for the kids). Over this past year, I am making sure that I am getting in front of the lens more frequently than before as well!
In honor of capturing these precious and fleeting moments I would like to offer a session package each month in 2015 to a different special family. I would like to ask for nominations of families, whether in hard times due to health or financial needs, military families or other reasons that a family session should receive this special gift. I only ask for you to email me their names, contact information and why you nominate them as well as your name and contact information. If you know of a family, please email me at imagesbyvalerie@gmail.com or comment on this post your nominations information so I can find my first family for January 2015.
Happy Holidays to everyone and I hope you home runneth over with the spirit of the season, smiles from those you love and an unlimited supply of giggles and hugs.
-Valerie
