A big reason why…
In 2006 my wife and I sold our home in Seattle and moved to Christchurch, New Zealand. With no jobs, no children, and no place to live we went for it. Fast forward two and a half years later and we had jobs, a house, and our first child.
My wife was able to reduce to working 20 hours per week and I was already on a four day work week—Tuesday-Friday. So, our son and I were able to have Mondays to just the two of us. It was a great blessing to have all this time with my newborn son. We had two and a half years of Mondays together until we moved back to Washington State.
Our Monday mornings were usually slow and relaxed. He would wake up. I would get him out of his crib and we would get another 20-30 minutes of sleep and some snuggling on the couch.
He has piercing blue eyes and I noticed how the big window our couch was backed up to brilliantly lit up his eyes. One day I grabbed my trusty Canon 5d with a 50mm lens to photograph him in that window light. I didn’t have a wider lens, so 50mm needed to work. I leaned up against the back of the couch and propped my legs up on the coffee table with my knees up as high as possible. I balanced my son on my lap and leaned as far back as possible. I was able to get just enough distance to fit just his face and a bit of his shoulders in the frame.
I then processed the photos as black and white, because that is the best thing to do, and emailed one each Monday to my wife at work and our families back in the USA. Now we have many photos of his little face as it quickly changed week by week. Looking back at them I am astounded at how quickly a child’s face changes over the first years and even into their teenager years.
Having these photos has been a blessing to remember that little face. They are more valuable than the birthday party photos and 1000s of camera phone snapshots.
Also, I continue to take up close and personal portraits of both my sons as often as possible. I sometimes shoot formal ones and often just get up close portraits where ever we happen to be at the time.
