Why I take photos
Not the reason you might expect
It was the Edinburgh Marathon ten days ago. They run past my garden on their way to East Lothian and I take my Sunday coffee out to clap and cheer.
(This is not really a story about Marathon Running)
Always by the time the first woman passes, I feel tears pricking… Sunglasses go on. Voice wavers.
Marathons get me every single time.
I think it’s
the training. Months (years) leading up to that moment.
the story behind each runner’s ‘Why’ for their charity and their bid to make the world a little bit better. Thousands of contestants stream past. So thousands of stories.
doing your absolute best and keeping going even when you feel you can’t.
the celebration of your body and doing it no matter what is put in your way.
Now this isn’t really a story about marathon running.
It’s more about the story that each of us holds inside us.
The triumphs,
the heartbreaks,
the adventures and
the curveballs that life has thrown at us.
And coming through it.
Shaped and a little bit different, but with the same core.
We all hold a unique story of what makes us who we are, what makes us loved. And what makes us smile from deep inside.
On Monday night last week, I was arriving home.
Blackbird in full song. Dusk settling but still warm and for once not windy.
Putting my key in the door and I was hit by an overwhelming sensation.
On the other side of that door was my sleeping family;
the marks (read: mess) of their presence all about.
The things I often grumble about - dishes not put away, clothes in puddles like the person inside had evaporated, art materials waiting hopefully for their maker…
But viewed in that moment:
These became signs of full, vital lives and showing exactly where we are, on our journey as a family.
In that moment I was so grateful it almost swallowed me up.
Life is good.
Life is not perfect.
Life is not not a struggle or a juggle.
Life is chaotic.
And sometimes I barely feel like I’m holding on.
But life is also deeply good.
It hasn’t always been this way and nor will it always be.
Which makes it all the more precious.
When and how were you last unexpectedly blindsided by gratitude?
We can’t hold onto it.
But we can celebrate these moments and hold onto them.
And for me, photographs are always a way to transport you back.
Is there a moment you wish you could hold onto?
Wish you had photos to take you back to it?
I’d love to bottle that moment last Monday, complete with the immense appreciation and the sandy socks discarded outside the front door.
If you’d love to be able to properly capture and celebrate those moments, hold them up as a reminder of the core of all the good stuff within your life,
of the adventures,
and the gratitude blindsidings,
Then follow these ideas of where and how to take photos.
Best from a blustery Porty (where the blackbird is about to start singing- I hope)