I had a dream this week that I was on a train ride. I was really enjoying the ride, the scenery was beautiful, but then all of a sudden, the train began to accelerate. The next thing I knew, the train was moving so fast it was scaring the bejesus out of me! It was like being on a rollercoaster and it was barrelling down the track! I woke up, a little out of breath, and couldn’t stop thinking about the dream because it was so vivid … so you know I had to Google “train symbolism in dreams.”
As suspected, it seems train rides can represent the journey you are on, or “life,” and the fact that my ride seems to be careening down the track is no surprise, given that I’ve spent the entire week looking at those back to school photos everyone is posting! I saw so many photos of little ones that I’ve photographed for 11 years now. Some didn’t even exist when I shot their parents’ wedding and now they were starting kindergarten, some were starting their senior year and becoming full fledged, driving teen agers, some were going off to college, and all of it kind of blew my mind!! Time marches on for sure!
(Jeremy, my very first client, just started his senior year of high school)
And I know I’m not alone in this feeling. I get phone calls from moms about this all the time! “Please photograph me with my children one last time, before they start leaving the nest.” There is a beauty and a pain in that inquiry that is so familiar because it speaks right to my mamma heart. They know that soon the graduations will come, the jobs begin, engagements happen, the weddings … life has a way of taking us down that train track really fast! There’s only one way to freeze time, and that is to photograph your family and save the memory. We know it’s hard getting everyone coordinated, and dressed and in a good mood all at the same time, but it is oh so worth it to have those memories to look back on!
Sometimes, the request will be a little bigger and is more along the lines of “Our family has gotten really big and we FINALLY got them all together in New Orleans! Can you come out and capture us all together?” Oh my gosh, multi-generational requests are just the best! We get to photograph the entire family, and at the center of it is a beautiful mom, now grandmother, who is so amazingly proud and filled with love!
Children grow up, families change and grow and the train whizzes down the track! We get so busy that it does seem like the train ride starts to speed up! You can’t stop the journey of life, but you can hold onto what matters most by capturing your family in all its beautiful stages in photos. Taking regular family portraits will ensure that you remember your family where it is today, and that you will leave a legacy for future generations!
With the holidays right around the corner, now is the perfect time to start thinking about scheduling a family portrait. Contact us today about scheduling your family session, or about purchasing a gift certificate for someone for the holidays.
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