black and white – Anthem Photography

24 Hours of Brothers: 2016 Edition

November 29, 2016Posted in children, families, personalTagged black and white, candid, candid photography, children, day-in-the-life, kansas city family photographer, lifestyle photography, photo project1 Comment

There are some things that simply can’t be understood without experiencing them. When someone tells a new mother “It goes by quickly” or “The days are long, but the years are short,” chances are good that she won’t be able to fully comprehend it. She may just think those are the lines that every experienced parent passes along to new parents to try to help them through the struggles. She may actually imagine with great anticipation the day that she no longer has to change diapers. She may simply nod her exhausted head while secretly hoping that the sleepless nights indeed go by quickly.

Until the day she wakes up and realizes that her babies are no longer babies.

And she wonders how it happened.

And she can remember moments and milestones, but the sizes and the sounds and the specifics seem so far out of reach. There are surely memories between her fingertips of silky soft strands of hair curled in perfect arcs, and somewhere on her lips are warm kisses on the baby-fat bellies, and there must be an echo in her ears of squeaky voices that can’t say their Rs. Recalling those single traits alone can be fairly easy, but when they grow and change so rapidly, remembering those little babies as a whole person feels nearly impossible. It’s like memories are segmented, categorized, and rendered incomplete as they’re stored in every corner of the mind. It takes something powerful and nearly magical to pull them back together.

Something like a photograph.

Although images are only a representation of a moment, they hold a certain magic in retelling what memory can’t always convey. They record beauty, chaos, and emotions we often forget existed in that fraction of a second (and just HOW did those fractions of seconds so quickly became passing years?). The messy rooms and piles of laundry in hallways, the fits and tears, and the tiny smiles with varying numbers of teeth are the details a mind can lose along the way. And those are exactly the things I know I’ll want to keep.

When I started this project four years ago, I knew it would be important to me at the time, but I had no idea how much more meaningful the recollection of that ordinary day would become as the years passed. When I attempted it again two years ago, I noted how unimpressed I was with the images I created that day, but now I love each and every one of the photos dearly. Those are days full of details I didn’t realize I’d miss, and miss so desperately.

These will be the days I so desperately miss years from now.

So here are my beloved boys on an ordinary Tuesday in November of 2016. Here’s to appreciating fractions of seconds, and finally realizing how quickly they become years.

www.anthem-photo.com

24 Hours of Brothers

December 4, 2014December 4, 2014Posted in children, families, personalTagged anthem photography, black and white, candid, day-in-the-life, kansas city lifestyle photographer, lifestyle photography, www.anthem-photo.com2 Comments

In late November of 2012, I followed my then-two-year-old around with my camera from the moment he woke up to the moment he went to sleep. I documented the mischievous expressions, the sweet moments with our dogs, and the several tear-filled tantrums that are typical for little ones his age — and the resulting images are ones that I will treasure forever. I look back on them now, even just a couple of years later, and I am transported back to the time when my big guy was my little guy. A time when his personality was still developing. A time when we were a family of three.

I decided I would continue the tradition each year, on the same date. Well, in late November of 2013, I was massively pregnant with little dude number two. Mobility and focus were not on my list of strengths, and my lack of energy tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Whoa, ambitious lady, this doesn’t need to be done every year.” And I said, “Good point, lack of energy! Let’s go back to laying on the couch watching Netflix and googling ways to induce labor!” So, I’ll make this a by-yearly tradition. I think that’s good enough. And if motherhood has taught me anything, it’s that I’m totally fine and completely satisfied with “good enough” as a standard to shoot for.

My original project, 24 Hours of Nathan, became not only a treasured keepsake of images, but also a commentary on the crucial roles of the photographer, subject, and observer in the creation and immortality of the image. But this year’s attempt at documenting the boys left me fairly disappointed, to be perfectly honest. Before every session, every wedding, and every personal photo project, I envision my set of images. I imagine them weeks and days and seconds before they are taken, and what I had envisioned for this particular project is far grander than the outcome. There are literally six images in this set that I really like. By my standards, that’s a project that doesn’t belong on my blog. I realized by the 10th or 12th click of the shutter early in the morning that this project was going to be damn near impossible to complete. Having an 11-month old (who is fascinated with anything he shouldn’t touch) turned this project on its side immediately. When your subject wants to rub his grimy fingers on your lens, and turn the click wheel on the back, and pull the shoulder strap, and scream when you won’t let him do all of those things at once, my precious little baby became an incredibly challenging subject. Those precious and awe-inspiring images that I envisioned creating were thrown out the window.

But in documenting what I could, this round of my by-yearly project displays many of the challenges of having multiple children. Holy geez, it’s a lot harder than having one! Having to divide my attention between two beings that want my full attention is a challenge. Having to care for two little humans with incredibly different needs, with two incredibly different schedules is not easy. I also feel that this day’s documentation is in some ways incomplete, as I miss out on parts of their lives each day as my husband and I divide responsibilities. I chose to document Nathan’s bedtime routine because it was my turn to put him to bed, so I missed documenting Sam being rocked to sleep in the arms of his daddy. Every time I chose to focus on Sam, I missed documenting Nathan. That’s what it’s like having two… juggling. Constantly juggling. While standing on a ball, taming lions, and wearing a blindfold. While someone pulls your hair and rubs snot on your sleeve. That’s what it’s like having two. It’s certainly a joyful circus, and one that I am blessed to be a part of, but it’s a circus nonetheless.

I think this project will evolve with each iteration. I think in 2016, I’ll face new challenges I’m yet to understand with an almost-three-year-old and a first grader. I wonder what that day will be like. I wonder how accurate my visions for it will actually be.

So, friends, here it is. 24 Hours of Brothers (or, as I think I’ll affectionately subtitle it, Dia de los Duders):

http://www.anthem-photo.com

24 Hours of Nathan

December 2, 2012November 13, 2014Posted in children, personalTagged black and white, candid photography, day-in-the-life, documentation, kansas city lifestyle portraits, lifestyle photography, personal work, project7 Comments

My job is to create photographs. And I absolutely love it. But I often try to separate my job from my family by leaving my camera in my backpack and letting life happen without documenting it. Sometimes I let that go on too long. When I realized that for the past several weeks the only tool I had used to photograph my son was my phone, I was disheartened. It’s my job to document my clients’ lives. Their expressions. Their moments. Their once-in-a-lifetime days. I should focus on doing the same for my beloved family as well. Not every day, of course. But some days. The big days, obviously: holidays, birthdays, events. But what about the insignificant days–if there is such a thing as an insignificant day? What about a random Tuesday in November? A day much like most other weekdays. It seemed like a perfect day to keep a camera by my side. To take it with me to the library, the grocery store, and even in the shower. All to document the awesomeness of the everyday.

Now, I understand that the habits and routines of a two-year-old are probably not worthy of a photography project. This is nothing deep or earth-shattering. This is nothing new or noteworthy. But I have been spending so much time creating photographs for others that it was time to take some for myself. From the trivial to the… well… still trivial, but somewhat more interesting, I wanted to make sure that I always have proof of these moments that Nathan and I share almost daily, because days like this won’t last much longer. And I’m terrified of that fact.

As the day progressed, I realized that though this project was intended to be solely about Nathan, it’s also about me. This is what I see. This is what I experience. The day is just as much mine as it is his, even though I appear in only one of the images I took. The whole day was a great reminder that although photographers primarily document moments, we live them as well. We share a unique bond with our subjects as equal creators of an image. And the observer adds the dimension of eternity to the image and, therefore, to the moment. And these are the reasons why I love my job. And my life. And every seemingly insignificant moment captured along the way.

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