We have known the Gentry family for quite awhile.  Mia and their oldest are just a couple of months apart.  We met while we were both pregnant and WAY before I started my photography business.  Yep. They are THOSE kind of friends. The supportive type.  We finally got the chance to take some family photos for them last weekend. Even though not ALL the members of this awesome family were thrilled with having their photo taken and there were more than a few tears shed we ended up with some great shots for them.

You may have noticed a slight change to the look of the website and blog.  It’s beginning….the metamorphosis from Cindy Mills Photography to Cindy and Saylor.  We are working like crazy behind the scenes to create this new brand and a new and improved photography experience. Until we are ready to reveal the “new us” we are keeping it under wraps…thus the brown paper packaging and the stick figures.  It’s like our version of a sketch.  Even a great work of art begins with a sketch so this is our drawing board…our place to work out our ideas and dreams.  Please stick around, because this is only our sketch…..wait until we remove the brown wrapping paper and reveal the final product!

“The saddest thing about life is you don’t remember half of it.  You don’t even remember half of half of it.  Not even a tiny percentage, if you want to know the truth.” -Donald Miller from A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

I just picked this book up today and I haven’t even read the first page and I’m already captivated by this thought. Can you imagine how many things in your life that you actually FORGET!??  Things or events that at the time seem mundane, but isn’t that what makes up a life?  A series of random events that you are most likely to forget.  That makes me sad.  I want to remember the little things.

Today I was reminded of a little thing.  My daughter had to be picked up early from school today since she has mysteriously developed a sore throat and a fever.  So I brought her home and immediately set to work making her a bed on the couch.  I brought her pillow and blanket from her bed and her favorite stuffed puppy.  I put her favorite movie on t.v. and turned off all the lights and turned on the ceiling fan.  I gave her medicine and got her a drink to keep next to her makeshift bed.  Then I took a deep breath and I FELT a memory.  Not a specific event just the memory of all the times my mom did this for me.  I could practically feel the cold washcloth on my forehead.  Isn’t it amazing how quickly we forget these little moments in our lives?  Perhaps, this is why I am drawn to photography.  I am desperate to save these moments for myself and for others.

This past Saturday Saylor and I got together with some good friends of ours and we attempted to create a memory that we will all file away for the future.  I know that afternoon is one I won’t soon forget and I hope when they view these images they will feel the same way.  I will remember the laughs and the time spent with friends.  I hope they will remember how they looked when their family was just the two of them.  One of my most precious photos is of Saylor and I shortly before we found out our family was about to get bigger.  I look at that photo and I remember the moment vividly.  It makes me smile every time I look at it.

O.K.  Enough sappiness for a Wednesday evening.  Just found out my parents are making an impromptu visit and I have to figure out dinner.

Enjoy these photos of Andrew and Christine!

I think the thing I have always loved most about photographs is the story they tell.  Photos share stories of holidays, vacations and family of course, but they also tell a deeper story.  I believe a portrait tells the story that someone was loved deeply enough by another person that an image was made for that person to cherish.

My grandfather was a storyteller.  Boy, was he!!  He told the same ones over and over, but that didn’t matter to me.  I loved to listen to his tales of football and preaching.  I’m pretty sure not ALL of his stories were completely true.  At the very least they were greatly exaggerated, but I hung on his every word.  My favorite story was actually a song, ‘The Preacher and the bear.”  I used to think the song was about him (my grandpa was a preacher for more than 50 years).  When I remember my grandfather I think of his stories.  I like to think that I inherited a little bit of that special storytelling talent in the form of photography.  When I am editing through a session or wedding sometimes I come upon a photo and get a bit choked up thinking that sometime in the future someone is going to see this photo and it will be very special to them.  Maybe, I will tell them the story of their grandmother’s wedding day or how their great grandfather looked when he laughed.  I am so blessed that people allow me into their lives to capture these precious, fleeting moments for them!

So on this Sunday afternoon I am looking through some photos that we took yesterday (on a location scouting trip for an upcoming engagement session) and came across this one that I had to share.

Mia played model for us as we tested out one particular location.  She was SOOOO not into having her photo taken yesterday.  After every shutter click she would sigh and ask “Can I be done yet?”.  The story I see in this photo is that Mia is growing up before my eyes….quickly.  I haven’t taken all that many photos of her in the past year because we have been so busy, but this one showed me how swiftly time flies.  I will cherish it because she will never again look exactly like she did yesterday, exasperated with how long I was making her model for me.

What story could you be telling?