Real | Northwest Arkansas Lifestyle Photographer

September 12th, 2001 my dear, sweet mother passed away unexpectedly. It was a bigger shock to already shocked minds as my family was still reeling from the unimaginable horrors we had seen on the news of the attacks on the WTC.
My mother was my best friend. My secret keeper. The one who held me up during some pretty intense times in my life. Of course, her death sent me spiraling into another pretty intense time, only I didn't have her to ground me.

It was hard.

The last ten years have been filled with many ups and downs, as life tends to do, but I wasn't able to share any of it with her. Not having her face to face, of course, though I do feel her presence strongly. Often at the oddest of times. :)

What I have had in the last decade was love. Family. Friends. An amazing man who, even while he is driving me completely up the wall, makes me tingle when I think of how much I love him. Four children whose beauty brings tears to my eyes on so many occasions. Not just physical beauty, mind you, but the beauty inside of their hearts. Even during the fighting, yelling, and defiance of childhood, they are still oh so beautiful to me.

Losing my mother has made me treasure these moments even more. Knowing that my siblings and I have but a handful of photos of my mother in the last year of her life made me pick up a camera. My photos, as much as they make me so, so happy, they are not for me. They are for my children. Their children. Their children's children.

I have a huge desire this year to wrap myself up in the real. Those little moments that go by so fast but that you miss the most when you realize that they are gone. I hope that it is showing in my work. I want to share it. I will be sharing more of it. I think that is what photography is all about, right? Those moments?

It is raining here. I'm writing this quickly so I won't go back and look at it and change things and then save it as a draft only to never publish. Believe me, I've done this plenty of times in the last few weeks leading up to the 10th milestone of my mom's death. The rain (more so the lightning) is giving me the perfect excuse just to write quickly, pour it out, hit publish, and give a promise of more to come. I believe I've mentioned in the past how I want more of a connection in my blog but I never really follow through. It is a scary thing to put yourself out there, but the photographers that I'm drawn to, the ones that I want to hire to document my own family, part of their appeal is how real they are. Their blogs are just not filled with pretty pictures, they are filled with wonderful words that describe real life. I love that. I want that.

I have to get off of here. It is really starting to rain, and there are books to be read, children to sing to, and laundry to fold. Since a photo blog needs a photo, here is a fun one from early summer.

I love her hair in need of a comb, the look of concentration, the evidence of lunch being made. I'm 80% sure that she is probably without pants. Pants seem to be very overrated in this house for the girls. :)