I am rereading a great book, God Is at Eye Level, by Jan Phillips. It is a great book about how photography is an emotional process and sometimes a healing art. It has helped me become a photographer of moments at weddings. I am always looking for those moments between the couple, with family, and family. After I had mastered the art of classic portraiture and getting those all important family portraits it has been this book that helped me become who I am as a wedding photographer.
In the first chapter of the book it has the reader try and recall what photography meant as a child. There are two distinctive memories I have about photography. The first is going to the picture drawer in my parents room. In their desk, the second drawer on the left, was the picture drawer. It had pictures jammed into the drawer as well as a large box of pictures of the family and our trips. I would spend hours just looking through the images and remembering, or being told, what was going on in the image.
One image that is also one of my best memories, is this picture.
It is me and if I remember right it was taken at a lake in Michigan, close to where I was born in Elmhurst, Illinois. My dad took it and the large print of it hung next to his dresser in his room. I always loved looking at it, and of course being competitive that it was me and not my brothers. When my dad passed away I asked my mom if I could have it, and she agreed. When our youngest son, Daniel, was about the same age as I was in the image, he insisted that it was a picture of him.
So those are two memories as a child that has made me into the photographer I am today. What is your favorite picture as a child? How did images impact you when you were growing up?
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