Abbie's Real Life Blog

Unfortunately, no magic happened at the Homecoming game, though it was the prettiest fall day in weeks.  You could feel the energy in the air anyway, the hope of an unlikely victory.  I even drove by the stadium a couple of times in the morning to see how the tailgate-setups were coming along.  I love how people come out and do all of that.  I really should try to attend one this year- just go up and walk around and see everybody doing their thing, all decked out in gold and black.  Dad and I watched the game together on Saturday night, and it was pretty depressing.  ABC even switched the game to a more interesting one for part of the time after the half when it was clear that the game wasn’t even close.

I spent the morning out hiking, which was great.  I took my dog, assuming that she would not last very long, because when I’ve taken her in the past, she hasn’t lasted very long.  Sometimes she’s exhausted just from a walk through the dog park.  But I was totally wrong.  It must have been the chilly air on Saturday morning (it was about forty degrees out) combined with the sunny skies, because Martha basically danced through the woods.  I let her run off-leash and she was always sniffing something, running ahead or staying behind or going wading in the creek.  She wasn’t even tired out when we got back to the car, so we walked along the horse trail for a little while.  I will definitely do that again soon, because she and I both love that cool autumn air for hiking.

I didn’t take my camera out on Saturday morning because I had a family shoot scheduled for that afternoon.  I am always worried that I’ll do something stupid like drop my camera down a hill or into a creek or it will just stop working, and then I’ll be screwed.  So I left my camera at home and took the dog, because I never take the dog when I’m out shooting (and this might change, since she was so good about staying under voice control but not underfoot).  And, oh, it was so pretty on Saturday.  The trees were glowing.   I went out on Sunday morning and drove as far as Westphalia, Missouri, hoping that I could find some nice light and pretty trees to try to make up for missing out on Saturday, but things just didn’t work out too well.  I went home again and did some cleaning instead.

My family shoot on Saturday afternoon was with three sisters who went to high school with me.  They were all about my age and I knew them pretty well through classes, activities, and the like (it was a small school, of course).  We all became friends on Facebook in the past couple of years, which is awesome because they are married and have kids and interesting lives and all of that.  (I love Facebook for the nonstop-class-reunion aspect.)  When they were getting together for the weekend, one of them thought of me to do some big family pictures, and I was THRILLED.  We had the best day, we got the nicest spot in Shelter Gardens for our shots, which all turned out so beautifully, and they are all delightful people!

Becoming a people-photographer has really made me more emotional, or maybe becoming a people-photographer has overlapped with a stage in my life where I’m more emotional, I don’t know.  But I just love how photography lets me capture the connections and bonds between families and parents and children and people who love each other.  I was very emotional after I finished that shoot, partly because I knew these girls when they were young, and partly because they’re all grown up now with grown-up responsibilities and children and husbands and families and lives (and it makes me emotional to see how all of us age), and partly because they all so obviously love each other and make each other laugh and have fun together.  It was really beautiful to witness.

I can be such a cynical bastard sometimes, but I have to reconcile that with love of people-photography, because there is no cynicism in what I do with that.  It makes me say things like “it was really beautiful to witness” and mean it completely, even though it sounds sappy and naive.  And these sisters would probably roll their eyes at my description of everything, and I agree with them, and I would roll my eyes at someone else describing me and my family, but at the same time, that kind of family dynamic is beautiful and it’s important to remember that, because it doesn’t last forever.