The Thing about Pictures

Tis the season to take lots and lots of pictures, right? {I mean that's just every day for me, but for those a little less obsessed, this tends to be the time of year when we take more than even usual.

And this is also the season when they tell you {they being all the bloggers and TV people} how to take the best pictures and capture the memories without blur, without poor lighting, without missing the moment...on and on it goes.

It can stress a person just to think about it!

While I'm as eager as the next person to get a good picture, I think there's also a good point to remembering that not every photo has to be award-winning to be worth keeping.

You might remember that a couple of weeks ago, Ryan and I went to our brother-in-law's 40th birthday party. Johnny's wife, who is Ryan's sister, had put together a 20 minute video full of pictures of Johnny's life - from his childhood forward.

And for those twenty minutes, all the guests stopped and did this:

We watched as the many hairstyles of Johnny crossed the screen. We laughed at the silly ones, made fun of outfits, cracked up at faces, and took moments to remember the people he loved who weren't there in person that day, but whose lives haven't been forgotten.

After the video, Ryan talked to Johnny about what a great gift Lori had given him in that, and Johnny said this, which struck me right in the heart: "Thank goodness for pictures. I'd forgotten some of that stuff. It was so good to see it."

It struck me because I'd spent the entire evening fighting with my camera in the low lighting of the party room, waiting for the disco ball lights to cross people's faces so they didn't look like they had red-eye all over when I snapped pictures. It had been a rough photography night. And I did delete a BUNCH of pictures.

But there were some I kept even though they weren't perfect, because Johnny's words stuck with me. Pictures that weren't even CLOSE to perfect. Pictures that will never win an award. Pictures that aren't clear and would provide photography teachers with a dozen "don't do this" teachable moments.

But yet at the same time, pictures that preserve a moment and after all...that's the point of pictures. Pictures that I tried to edit and clean up the best I could, and then I handed the over imperfect memories because I hope in twenty years, Johnny can look back at a new video and be reminded of moments he had forgotten, but moments that aren't lost after all.

So here we are, headed into Christmas, and I hope you'll get your camera {or your phone} out and commemorate. And I hope you won't stress over the pictures that aren't perfect. I hope you'll see the beauty in the memories.