Childhood…Captured and preserved.

My mom did an excellent job of documenting my childhood. When I say excellent, what I mean is, I literally have 25 scrapbooks cataloging, photographically, my life from the time I was born all the way through my four college soccer seasons.

Isn’t that incredible? I don’t know how she did it. I have FIVE siblings, and they all have the same. And the scrapbooks aren’t just the simple “insert photo into this sleeve” kind. They are works of art. The woman spent days standing at her desk, working on pages and pages, all so we could have record of what we did.

Here are just a few examples of what she photographed that I would never remember without the photos:

– She taught all five of us how to weave baskets
– She photographed all of us on our first day of school every single year. What a record of fashion, amiright?!
– Endless photos of me with all my favorites toys that I carried everywhere throughout different phases of life (Cabbage Patch dolls, My Little Ponies, Pound Puppies, Raggedy Ann to name a few)
– The Mickey Mouse hat that I refused to take off for an entire year of my life
– That time I played Queen Jezebel in the school play
– How she would sometimes make cookies at 4:00 in the morning and let us eat them for breakfast instead of cereal
– All the years going to Florida for Christmas and taking weird sibling photos on the beach

These are just a few examples of thousands of memories my mom preserved. My gratefulness to her is really indescribable. 

Now I’m not putting pressure on any of you mothers reading this to invest in a Creative Memories habit (shout out to all of you who understand that reference). But I am calling attention to a lost art—the art of photographing and preserving memories. 

We have SO many digital images. I’m constantly deleting things on my phone to make room for more photos of my nieces and nephews. And yet, where will these images be 10 years from now? On our phones? Saved on the cloud? Lost? 

I’m speaking to myself here because I don’t have a great system for my iPhone photos. But I do have a great system for my clients. (See how I snuck some self-promo in here?!)

And that system is this: for my longer documentary sessions, I give families a printed album of their photos. It provides something tangible to my clients to help them see the value of getting photos of devices and into their lives.

I would love to hear from you guys about what moments in your daily life you want captured. In this season, what are your kids doing that you want to remember? What memories would you like to preserve for them when they are 28 years old and writing blogs about you?