Dear film camera, I miss you.

Today, something different instead of Homespun Happiness.
Something to make you think, and change the way you view what "Homespun Happiness" really is.

Where have all the pictures gone? 

Are you wondering that?  

Me too. 

The other morning some random thought leapt into my mind.  I was remembering my college days and some photographs I have from those glorious years.  Seriously, some of the best (and hardest at times) years of my life.  I learned about happiness and heart ache, trusting God, and what real friends are.  Glorious.  And I have the pictures to prove it.  As I was thinking on those pictures I was trying to remember what kind of cameras we used in "those days".  Because you know, at 30 I'm sooo old. :)

Not really, the truth just is that technology is so much on the rise that I'm sure things were a thousand times different 10 years ago.  I was remembering a particular set of pictures that were especially my favorites.  Looking back now, I was appalled to think that we weren't able to look at the pictures before processing them.  

What I DO remember however, is the feeling of anticipation and excitement both while taking the photos, and while waiting the one-hour time at Wal-Mart to see them.  What we didn't realize then was how authentic those images were.  It wasn't like it is now, where we can take 400 pictures and keep 40.  

Life was truly captured, in its raw, real form in those days.  You put the film in, 

you captured authentic moments-a blink here, a face caught in mid-conversation there.  It wasn't considered "bad" like it would be now.  It was a piece of the whole picture puzzle.  Because that's how I used to view my packet of pictures, back from the film developers.  As a puzzle, each moment of time fitting together with all the rest.  The eyes-closed photo just as important as the dazzling smile one. 

And oh friends, as I thought about this truth, that the level of expectation and perfection is on the rise (and keeps rising higher and higher) it just made me ache for the film days.  Long for the negatives. 

Miss the days of excitedly opening the photo envelope to see how the images turned out. 

The belly laughs over the missed shots. The tears welling up when your eyes landed on an image that made you feel. 

This is what I want to do with my photography.  I might still take hundreds of pictures and be caught up in the fast lane of today's photography world, but I want to capture every moment. 

Not just the perfect ones.....all the moments.  I want to lower the bar and capture people, my home, my family, as they are.  To bring the excitement, real authentic moments BACK.  

To tell stories-and just happen to use pictures instead of words.