Life moves quickly with a child. The only way to really appreciate it is through still photographs--images that capture the essence and the emotion of a place and time. Yesterday we sat down as a family behind a camera on a tripod and captured a moment of us as a family for our 2014 Holiday cards and for Gates' monthly portrait.
It's been half a year since I posted a monthly portrait of Gates (the last when she turned two). I got out of the practice when cubes was recovering from surgery last year and didn't really pick it back up again. Getting Gates to sit in front of a camera is an undertaking; she would rather be standing behind the tripod operating the camera, chronicling what she sees.
But just because something is hard doesn't mean I shouldn't still be trying to do it. I regularly find myself flipping through the few photos I have of me as a child. If I enjoy seeing how I changed through the years, I'm sure Gates will also enjoy it.
Gates doesn't need the images to be perfect; I seem to regularly forget that. She reminds me when she's asking for a video on my phone and looking for the few where I'm in the frame with her. Those moments are far from perfect. Often Gates is tackling me and we, along with the camera, are falling backwards laughing. But Gates can watch them again and again and smiles and laughs along with the video. (My plan was and is to share some of those videos; I just haven't gotten around to editing the footage.)
In seven months, Gates has grown almost two inches. To get an idea of how fast she's changing, you can compare monthly portraits. The last time Gates wore her black polka dot dress for a monthly portrait was at eighteen months. The dress was a little too big and landed mid-calf. Now the dress is almost a little too small and lands just above her knee.
I really like how our photos came out, and am thinking of trying this again next month. I think it might be interesting to see how our family changes from month to month.
Do you regularly chronicle your child's growth with monthly portraits?
Credits: All layouts designed by and images taken by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life.
