June-August

Things have been insane in the membrane. I haven’t really wanted to post for a while because 90% of what I do outside of work is photography stuff now. And it’s not really all that exciting for the most part. Lots of editing and scrolling through pictures. It’s exciting for me, but probably not for most people.

It looks like my last post was in June. It’s August now. So what has happened since June? I guess the biggest thing was that I got my new website up and running (www.wix.com/photosbybecky/web). I’m pretty sure it has been a huge help in getting clients. Even if it’s not though, I feel like such a big shot with my own fancy website :)

Last month I passed the test for two brides—they decided to try me out for their engagement sessions, and see if they liked me enough to book me for their wedding. It was one of the most nerve-wracking things I’ve done since high school! I was so nervous. Not because I felt like I didn’t have the ability SOMEWHERE inside me. But that I would screw something up. Like I’d forget to bring my memory card, or I’d leave the ISO up all the way … (um… not that I’ve done that…), or I’d do something like very Becky (and impossible) and leave my lens cap on or something. But things went well, and I’ve finally broken my way into the wedding industry! We’ll see how things go when the weddings come ‘round the mountain.

I’ve been so thankful for my friends—and even acquaintances—who have referred people to me. It makes me feel better about the mistakes I make when people actually like my work :)

I’ve been spending a lot of time researching other people’s styles, and messing around with my camera.

Work has been busy. I don’t really want to talk about it. :P

I’m re-reading The Lord of the Rings, and thoroughly enjoying it.

We spent some time in Idaho a couple weeks ago for a funeral. It was a sad experience, but I was grateful for my new hobby—to give me something to take my mind off of things, and to preserve some of the memories I have of my great aunt who passed. I took some pictures of her home, and little things around her house that I’d always cherished growing up. Like the knobs on her oven, her clock (it’s too bad I couldn’t capture the sound it makes too), the steep steps into the basement, the darkness that was the basement laundry-room, the latch to the screen door from the garage to the kitchen, the stairs on the entry, the wallpaper in the pink bathroom (that is ironically back in style), the fake fruit made of pins and beads we weren’t allowed to touch, the bottom cupboards in the hallways that I was allowed to search through, the dusty bar counter in the basement full of odds and ends like punch bowls and random vases that I used to use to play “party”, the “goody” brush in the bathroom I used to borrow when my hair was snarly, the crack down the middle of the cement patio out back that my chair used to get caught on when we’d play scrabble outside, the bushes along the back fence where I found my first caterpillar, the paper cup dispenser by the sink that holds those tiny cups with fish printed on them that are so perfect for 5 year-old hands, the spot on the shag carpet I threw up on in the basement one Thanksgiving, the Thanksgiving Dinners all crammed in the basement with all the tables and chairs in the house lined up, the lava-rock garden in the front yard, the clown made of yarn hanging in the dining room; and things I didn’t recognize till I was older, like the old-fashioned mirror in the front entry way, the bird and flower wall decorations, the never-visited “side and rear of the house”, the laundry room with the lights ON, the guest bedroom with various heirlooms stored about—like the vanity set with matching brush, comb, and mirror, my aunt’s bedroom, the tv mounted into the wall and surrounding bookshelf covered in old books, that her street was named Circle Drive—how absurd, the stash of old photographs in the hidden cabinet under that tv, and so many other things. I couldn’t stop feeling like everything is changing, and nothing is ever going to be the same anymore. Her house will probably be sold, if not only taken apart and boxed up. The little things she did to make it her home, like the notes on top of the dishwasher in the corner of the dining room, the tiny boxes of cereal Fruit Loops and Frosted Flakes mostly) she’d buy for when we visited and wanted snacks, the Christmas coloring books stashed away, and the magnetic pictures of her great-neices and nephews on the fridge, her deep blue Cougar in the garage, will be gone soon, as there’s no one to drive it. Even the way she meticulously preserved her own mother’s touch on the décor will be gone. Her health had been failing for a number of years, and things haven’t been the same with her as when I was little for quite a long time. But many things were preserved, including everything in her home. It was easy to put the time when things would be completely different out of mind. I wish there had been a way to take a picture of the rest of the things about her that I don’t want to forget. Like how she was one of two people who could tell my grandma what to do, that she HAD to wash the sheets and make the beds frequently, that she’d sit and listen to what we were interested in as kids, that she never forgot my birthday. That she always had Caffeine Free Diet Coke in the fridge. Her handwriting. I want to remember sitting in the back seat of her car by myself on the drive to Bear Lake, and the first time I realized she had temple clothes, had a career before she retired, wasn’t always old and wrinkly—but young and beautiful, and how she must have wanted children.

I can’t help but think forward in time to when the rest of my family passes. I really only have one set of grandparents who were a large part of my life. I include her in that set as a second grandma on my mom’s side. My grandpa passed a few years back, and adding her death to that list really made me stop and think about how much of what I care about won’t be around forever. Each time I visit them, I feel like I never realized how much I care about them and their little dot on the map. One day it will be MY mom who is old and wrinkly, and MY children looking at her and asking her if they can get M&Ms from the Maverick on the corner.

Strange to think about.

I know everyone on earth experiences death—their own death as well as the death of those they love. Most people, luckily, experience death the “normal” way, by old age. I know it’s nothing extra-ordinary to be experiencing the death of a great-aunt or grandparent. But it is important for each person who experiences it.

My family probably got really tired really fast of all the pictures I was taking. I’ve become “that aunt” with the camera. But I couldn’t bring myself to put it down. I kept seeing things around me that I wanted to preserve. Things are always changing, and they’ll never be the same. Change can be good. But I don’t want to forget the things that were important to me along the way.