Yesterday the kids and I walked to the local playground. Coco did somersaults down the hill The boys ran around under the bleachers and then we all watched the clouds pass us by. I kept thinking about how real life is better than a painting, better than any photograph, no matter how great the quality, you can't see the clouds stretch and move. Even a video, the shadings and colors are never perfect. We laid there with our hands behind our heads talking and day dreaming together. And I thought of this quote by Fenelon: "Everything that is in you cries out against yourself for your Creator. Be still then creature." 
When Jeff was a baby I heard the President of Amazon.com say that he took one picture every single day so that at the end of his life he could look back and see the life he had lived. It was during a time in my life when my friend Amy had given me all the college photography course material she had and I was ready to take photography a little more seriously. So for Jeff's entire first year I have a photo a day and then for Eti's first year and finally for Coco's. That is what I did for their baby books, they can look back and see what was happening in the first year they were born. I decided to do it for a year again, this time for no reason, just start it when I had a birthday and keep up on it for a year. The three years I did it in the past I was more grateful, more aware of life and little happenings all around me. 
I am going to assist for the first time this weekend to help my assistant Jenean shoot her first wedding! It will be so much fun to have no pressure just creative license to take all the shots I want! I am already backed up on weddings I have done this Summer so it is nice to just hand them to her and not have to edit! :) Jenean and I think so much alike in the world of photography, it is very smooth and comfortable with her. I invited her to go to the park with me today and we stopped at the church to get more ideas for Saturday. This is a HUGE Gothic style church built in the mid 1800's. While Jenean was taking care of her baby the boys and I went in to check out the church. I got talking with a woman who worked there and some how talked her into letting me up in the bell tower! I got the distinct impression that very few people have been up there, by how dirty the steps were. The spiral steps were so tight like a light house tower. The picture above is one of the walls many storeys up inside the bell tower. I kept tapping the boys behind her back saying "No one ever gets to do this look around, just think of the stories we can tell Daddy when we get home he will be so jealous!" | 
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