photos...

I love photography. I have loved photos for a LONG time. I have a friend that I have known since the 4th grade. Debbie liked taking photos too. Early- and they were of everything, because as a kid you like to take pictures of your pool, your room and your cats, not necessarily things that you would put up in an art gallery. But I loved the idea of documenting life. I loved back then the anticipation of getting the images back on paper and looking through her photos. You remember you'd have to drop off your film and get them back 3-7 days later? I loved looking at pictures of our friends and the other random things she'd take pictures of. My older (not oldest) sister is 5 years older then me. When she was in High School she took a photography class and was able to develop her own black and white pictures. I remember this one cool picture that she took through the planks of our deck. The grain in the wood was so cool, and it just sticks out in my mind. When I got to High School, I took all the photography classes I could. I spent a lot of time in the dark room, developing my own pictures. I loved taking the film, loading it onto the reels- seeing the negatives develop and then loading them into negative sleeves and looking at them all, deciding what images might have turned out best. I loved buying the photo paper- and going into photo stores and trying different kinds of papers, and different sizes. Watching the images appear in the chemicals was magical. I created it. I could alter it. I LOVED it. I still miss that part of photography. If I could, I'd set up a darkroom in my house. We even have a boatload of darkroom supplies packed in boxes in my basement. If I could have it the way i want I'd go for it, but I have a family and put that on hold until it works. And for now I've been enjoying digital photography- but I was reluctant to use it. We went to France about 5 years ago and we took both my Minolta film camera, and the brand new Digital SLR we bought, because I couldn't imagine taking the photos completely on digital and not have negatives. enough about me.

Okay, all that to say. I wanted to contemplate taking my own photos of the boys for the announcement. I did. But I have a very talented friend, Jan, who offered to take her time to do it instead. Jan is professionally trained, so when she offered, I felt blessed. It's been so cool to see Jan's work develop since I've known her. She used to work on Capitol Hill and left her job to pursue her passion for photography full time. She's learned and developed so much- she does beautiful work. You can see blog here: http://www.janmichele.blogspot.com/ we spent two different attempts to get the photos, and it was stressful!! We used photos from when caed was 2-3 months old for his announcements so I was excited to get those newborn photos...but it was hard! We didn't get very many photos of just Aldan....he wouldn't sleep! When they are sleeping, you are supposed to be able to get them all pose-able...but that didn't happen...anyway- here are photos we didn't use for the announcement, I'll let her talent speak for itself...