When I was a little girl, I would spend hours looking through family photographs. We had this old bureau that was stuffed full of loose pictures, randomly shoved together and in no particular order. I loved to rummage through them and ask my mother and grandmother about all of the people in the pictures. Mostly family, some friends. I would dig and dig and dig through those pictures just imagining the moments that were so wonderfully frozen in time. It was a way to connect with the past; a past that was full of good times, hard times and otherwise forgotten times. And thinking back on it now, I understand why I chose photography as a way to connect with people. It informs my “Why”... The “Why do I do this everyday in spite of feeling like I am constantly riding a bucking horse that wants to kick my teeth in but I keep climbing on its back anyway?” That may be an extreme exaggeration but in all honesty, the role I lovingly refer to as “Momprenuer”, is tough.
It makes sense though. I never choose the easy path and I probably never will. My life has been full of challenges and they have shaped me in countless ways. When I was 5 my parents separated. I lived with my mom because my dad was a long haul trucker and spent several days at a time on the road. I saw him every other weekend for a while but then came a time when I no longer saw him regularly and weeks without visits turned into years. We had a few sporadic phone calls here and there but lost touch entirely when I was about 8. When I was 20, I received a phone call that he had passed away. The doctor that I spoke to told me that they would be mailing me his possessions. The first thought I had was, I hope there is a recent photograph so that I can see what he looked like nearly 15 years later. There wasn’t.
The only photographs I had of him were in the bureau and they were all from a lifetime ago. We had several pictures of our happy little family portraits at ‘Olan Mills’, snapshots of fishing trips together, Christmases, Easters, etc… In fact, if I handed you a stack of these pictures, you’d be hard pressed to find the tough times that would follow these very ordinary, very happy family moments. Those photographs are my living proof that once upon a time my mom and dad loved each other enough to bring me and my little sister into the world.
My sister Lauren and I grew close in those years following our parents divorce and spent lots of time with our grandparents while our mother tried to start over. She decided to open her own house painting business and I got to see first hand how hard being a small business owner could be. I was too young to fully understand but I knew that it took her a lot of time, energy, and sacrifice. She was strong though and I admired her in a lot of ways for doing so much on her own while trying to raise two little girls.
My mom eventually remarried and we collected stacks of pictures from the next chapter of our life. Not long after she married my step dad, my mom gave birth to my third sister Erika and then a couple years after that, my fourth sister, Valerya. We were now a family of 6. We have pictures of birthday parties, family trips, backyard swinging, camping, barbecues… all the fun family times that most all of us can relate to. And again, our family photographs serve as proof that these moments won’t be forgotten and are worth looking back on.
On long hot summer days or boring snowy ones, I’d go back to that bureau and drag out all of those photographs. I’d piece together my childhood and try to remember all of those good times. When I visited my grandma (which was often), I’d open her scrapbooks for fun. She kept more organized photos at her house and made dozens of albums highlighting specific time periods of her life. She made one of her high school years and all of the dances she attended. She’d tell stories of dancing with boys and smoking cigarettes with her friends.
She had scrapbooks from when my grandfather went off to basic training during the Korean war, their life (complete with letters) as newlyweds spent worlds apart in the first few years, my grandfather’s graduation from Texas Tech and his first jobs at various ranches. In these scrapbooks I could travel back in time with them and imagine how life must’ve felt. My grandparents were really good at taking pictures and even better at telling the stories. Gran Deanie had a mind like a steel trap and could recount everything about the day or people in each picture. My grandfather, Happy Hank, was a natural storyteller and he added beautiful details to go along with the pictures.
My favorite albums were the ones of my mom and her brothers as children. They were raised on a 150,000 acre cattle ranch in southern Colorado. I was fascinated (and still am today) by their life on that ranch. My mom rode her horse, Honey Red, everyday and helped my grandpa with rounding up cattle. My uncle tells me that she was a very talented rider and always the fastest, riding out ahead of the group to lead them in the right direction. I could listen to my mom and uncle tell stories of the trouble they got into on that ranch for hours. The photographs that go with those stories are some of my most treasured.
My grandparents moved into a nursing home a few years back and my uncles entrusted me with the family albums. I get them out from time to time and relive the stories that have been handed down to me. My grandma left us a living legacy her entire life. We even have photos from when her mother was young dating back to the early 1900’s. The 65 years her and my grandfather were married gave way to thousands of photo worthy moments. She knew the value in capturing those moments so that the younger generations could look back and connect to their family history.
When I was 26 my mother passed away somewhat unexpectedly. It sent us reeling and was one of the darkest times of my life. Within hours after she passed, I went straight to the bureau. It still had stacks of pictures strewn about. I started organizing them into time periods and trying to create a timeline of her life. It was the only thing that made sense to me at the time. I had this strong urge to show her in such a way that it gave meaning to her life. Every photograph became a reference to specific parts of her. The mother, the daughter, the grandmother, the independent thinker, the often rebellious, untamable and wild wonder that was my mom. She was gone physically from the world but in those photographs I could connect to all of those pieces of her. And I don’t think it was by chance that I did that. I think instinct lead me to do it. I have always been drawn to those photographs.
At this point in time, Adam I had been working on building a photography business and my mom was really proud of us for pursuing this dream. We had a hobby level DSLR camera and started shooting families, weddings and anything that people wanted really. We were both art majors in college and this was a way we could use our creative talents while earning an income. The starving artist lifestyle was not going to cut it so we took to a medium that was more accessible. But all of those business dreams came crashing down when my mom died. There just wasn’t time anymore to think about it. We were thrown into the midst of taking care of my teenage sisters and helping our family to survive this tragic loss. We would still take clients here and there based on word of mouth...friends of friends and such. But the energy to take it full time was just not there. It was a hard time to push through.
Eventually I came back to myself, my own desires and dreams and I decided to wake up that sleeping need to create. I have slowly been building my dreams of being a successful creative entrepreneur. So when I started to really dig deep and try to pin down my “Why”, all of these moments came flooding in. Photography is special. My entire life has been filled with reasons why photography is especially important to me. The pictures that remain are the only physical representation I have of the long list of incredibly important people I have lost.
I take pictures in hopes that the families I serve can look back to the important moments in their life and have that visual proof. And when loved ones are no longer physically here, they have the photos to help them remember a happier time. I believe in preserving family history and that every piece of it, however happy, difficult or seemingly ordinary, has meaning. I would argue that you’ll never have too many pictures of your family… and trust me, children love to look at pictures of their family too! They’ll probably thank you later on for documenting their life so well.
So that’s it. Thank you for staying with me this long so that I could share my heart for why I love photography. Now go take more pictures… oh and print them too! Or go open an old album and have your children crawl up into your lap to look at all of the wonderful moments you’ve shared together. If your children are grown, take some time to reflect on those memories and let the photographs take you back in time. And if you don’t have children, well look at your own childhood! That’s the most fun! Everyone loves to see old photos from their “awkward” phase, am I right?
Love,
Jenn
PS~
I know you might be asking yourself, so where’s the bureau now? I still have it! And I filled it with albums of my life with Adam and our two little girls, Lydia & Emmersyn. I have all of those old photographs from my childhood organized in a box and I made a small collage with some of the more special ones of my mom and sisters. I just got the box out a few weeks back when I wrote Our Love Story, Part 1: Middle School. Lydia had a lot of fun digging through it with me and it was equally fun for me to share a piece of my past with her.