The invisible me

My friend Jodie over at JODIFIED inspired me with THIS post a few weeks ago.  In it she talks about how she has virtually NO pictures of herself with her kids.  I think this is something all mommy photogs suffer from.  And it's a real problem.  My dear friend Liz and I exchange photo shoots once a year so that we can get at least *some* pictures of ourselves with our kids, at least once every 365 days, but the rest of the year: NADA.  Zip.  ZILCH.  I have absolutely nothing to show for the rest of the year other than the gizillion shots I take of my kids.  Shots I am not included in.  It's great that I am able to document so much of their lives but by leaving myself out of the picture (pun intended) I'm taking away an important element.  I want my kids to also remember OUR relationship and my involvement in their lives and how we connected.  I want to document that for MY OWN family too!  And, like Jodie, I hate self timers.  They're not for me.  My camera is too heavy to hold with one hand for any extended period of time as well.  So, I decided to try a little experiment.  I decided that for 3 nights this week, on nights when I didn't have any shoots, I would do a series of "self portraits" with the kids on Ellie's bed and then make a collage from my favorite out takes.  I took them with my dingy point and shoot so no, we're definitely not talking FINE ART here.  The fact is these are just merely snapshots.  Nothing more, nothing less.  And yet they mean SO much to me.  It captures us having fun together.  I took the pictures every night at 6:30pm on Ellie's bed as we were getting ready to tackle the bedtime routine in our house.  Her room gets great light during that time of day (while Gavin's is bright in the morning when he is at school, of course).  We just goofed off, made silly faces, cuddled, talked and LAUGHED.  Hard.  I did a "session" just with Ellie and then one with both Gavin and Ellie.  I haven't been able to do one with just Gavin yet but that's next.  As soon as Ellie stops freaking out when I try to do one with just him on her bed!  She's the jealous type....  :)  I turned off the flash feature on the P&S and just kept snapping away until my arm was so tired of holding up the camera that it was shaking uncontrollably.  Totally worth it.  

Bottom line: we had fun.  And I have "proof" of it.  And my kids have "proof" that I wasn't just the lady behind the camera all the time.  I just may value these silly little snapshots more than the "quality" shots I take of the kids.  The best part is I'm wearing absolutely no make-up, in totally grubby clothes, hair up in a ponytail or crazy and uncombed and yet, I could absolutely care less, because this is how the kids see me every day and they still love me anyways!  This is real life captured. Just the way I like it.

Thank you, Jodie.

 

That bottom middle one with Ellie cracks me up.  We were both winking at the camera but I'm the doofus who can only wink with my left eye and I was holding the camera with my right hand and well, I just look like a total dork, but I swear I'm winking!!