While we were together at Thanksgiving this past weekend, my sister, Megan, and I decided to swap family pictures. (She’s also a photographer. Check her out here.) Mom said that she wants some pictures of her and Dad together since that hasn’t happened since…well, about this long ago. (This, by the way, is one of my favorite pictures of my parents!)
I take pictures because of this: capturing the moments. There are thousand posed pictures of my parents, but this one showcases their love in a very sweet and real format that is just beyond words.
Allow me to copy from what I wrote on my personal blog just yesterday, “There were family pictures to be taken and Megan and I had worked out a trade. We got both the Sarver’s and the Crall’s photos done in 30 minutes, absolute record time! It took Dad longer just to get dressed for his and Mom’s pictures.
Now let me just say, my parents are hilarious. They’ve been married for over 30 years and you think that Dad would just know by now to go with whatever Mom says, but when she told him to go get his dad’s old bike down from the attic of the garage, it was a mess of explanations. Imagine later, when we photographed them on the bike, how my Dad was laughing so hard he couldn’t even focus because Isaac, an Amish neighbor, was going by in his buggy and Dad just thought it was the funniest thing to know that Isaac would be telling the whole community about that Perry Miller out there by the barn on a bike taking pictures.
My dad is very logistic and he kept saying, “Now, you know that this isn’t a logical scenario; we wouldn’t actually just be hanging out by the barn sitting on an old bike.” Megan and I had a thousand laughs just watching my dad get all worked up. Another comical moment was when Mom was kicking the barn cats out of the picture because they were rubbing all over her ankles and Dad said they could be in the picture because, “They’re my friends! They go with my all over the farm!”
So, yes, laughter was plentiful in the Mom/Dad photo shoot. But in the laughter is an incredible feeling of pride over the love that my parents share. Just hearing my dad’s laughter in itself is a sort of magical, but to see my mom involved in making the laughter happen…it’s just something really special that I feel privileged to witness.”
I let Megan be first-shooter and I second-shot, which was really fun for me. Knowing my dad, I know he won’t get this (“Well, it’s blurry! You can’t see anything!”), but this picture is one of my absolute favorites from the day!!
But, of course, there are more. Megan has a great one of them on my Grandpa’s bike (I didn’t know this until Meg said, but the bike was apparently a birthday present to my dad from his dad. Grandpa died when my dad was only 12 so it’s the last present he remembers getting from his dad–tears a little bit.), but since I was second-shooter, I got to crawl around on the ground behind-the-scenes and get other goodies like these.
Megan took this shot of me…
…taking these shots.
The sky was gorgeous. I just had to dial down the exposure and grab the blue hued backdrop.
Now, I usually edit all photos before posting, but let me just let you in on a secret, I changed my white balance on this shot on purpose and ended up with a finished-product straight out of the camera.
Megan doing her magic.
One of Dad’s furry friends…
Coming soon will be my sister’s family! Stay tuned for those!
-E
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