Pictures Matter

So I have this "problem" and I will just say it....I think in and through pictures.

Caption- #1 & #4 on Sox- one week from #4 falling off the colt--and #2 on Vaquerro with the setting sun about to dip over the mountain. #3 is behind me on .45 with Dad leading and I am leading our project named Ike (blue roan to train and sell)
Life in this small moment was perfectly beautiful and carefree.

“Taking an image, freezing a moment, reveals how rich reality truly is.”

— Anonymous

Yes- I see humanity's candid moments or God's bright and beautiful creations and instantly my mind's eye frames them while my hand reaches for my camera- or phone thanks to technology- and snap! That moment is recorded....those thoughts and emotions and sights... persevered to be retrieved and relived over and over again. 
I 💟 it!

Now- despite the best of efforts-I can't remember half of life's moments in visual detail- or even that they even happened at times- until those moments, frozen in time by a picture, come back before my eyes, bringing with them all the feels.  

Caption- While marking out where a light post was to be placed I hear a calm little voice plea, "Mom- can you help?" I turn to see this little fella in quiet the predicament and me at a cross-road- should I help him or leave him, that was a hard one! HaHa!

You know what I am saying right? I am certain of it.  Pictures are priceless and treasured  greatly by me. Without them I would not have the gift to recall the tender moments nor the remove-stomach-from-throat/my-child-should-have-died moments; all of which make up the tapestry of my existence and what a blessing it is to record them in perfect form....

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”

— Aaron Siskind

Caption-  #4 proudly showing his brother's lizard cash
(Dad lets them hunt lizards-Mom doesn't.) One day #2 got
one with a flick of his knife then stuck it to a post as a
"present" for me.  🙈

Side note- because you know a women's mind is never thinking of just one thing, consequently leaving plenty of side notes to almost every thought and I just happen to have one at this very moment and I want to share it- aren't you lucky! 

My husband thinks I take way too many pictures and yet he only sees a picture happening when I get out my camera. HA! If he only knew that half of it!  And I know I am not alone in this....addiction?

One of my dearest youth leaders as I was growing up told me that her husband once told her in jest, when their kids were nearly grown, that she 'could have had a bigger house if  she didn't take so many pictures.' We both chuckled at the thought- and agreed with his observation-because she has an archive of moments preserved in time- and tenderly cataloged in respective albums- that would out-do most lawyers libraries! Think of the amount of time and resources going towards one-hour photo and albums to make a library of memories like that.....And she wouldn't trade it for anything! 

Alright- so why am I telling you all this? Well it's quit simple really. I have to tell you the back story to get to the front story and if I ever told any story in a short way pigs would be flying. HA! 

Ok, really, what am I getting at?  

I am doing what any story best told ever does, a moment is built-up to make the impact on a climactic shift more intense.  Well here's the climactic shift for you. Here is where my lovely scene, painted in words above,  comes crashing down like Alice in that  rabbit's whole. 

I lost an SD card.  I LOST a tiny black little piece of plastic with treasured family moments from 2019! I LOST a card with pictures on it that I don't even remember taking because all I could do in those moments was click the shutter and promise to make time later to write about them.
  I LOST memories!

Caption- #3 & #4 begged to go to the corrals to catch this goldfish; the trough was full of them, but this guy was the biggest and the prize.  The first day they attempted to capture him was the day I was taking the family photos for a friend. 

You see, I took family photos for a friend and in my haste to get to location- in the middle of schooling and getting four boys quasi presentable- I grabbed the wrong SD card. I didn't know that I grabbed a card that hadn't had been downloaded until I got to the corrals, but that should have been no biggy, a 64G card can hold plenty of moments. Well... it was and is a HUGH biggy now.


 

Photo credit to Heidi Anderson -  She still loves me even though I lost her family's photos 

Somewhere in my efforts to multi-task and edit the photo session- while at the Railroad Museum with #1 ( I really need to come up with better code names for my boys) or at scouts with all four - the card ejected from the computer and I didn't notice until Sunday, a week later.  Boo! 

This card had the most fantastic pictures of my boys running in the mud run- I know because I wanted to stop working on the family session to work on them they were so so good.
 Mud and smiles, sweat and accomplishment, and galore! 

There were pictures of many projects and little builders hard at work at home. Our barn in all it's stages of perfect imperfection.  And well....there were hundreds of other moments lost forever because I don't even know what else was on the card, I just know there were over 400 images before I took the family pictures.  

“Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.”

— Marc Riboud

Caption- This is the only surviving picture from the lost SD card. I snapped a picture (with my phone) of my computer screen to show Nana and Papa this boys giant smile.  I would have framed the original if I still had a chance. 

Oh my was this Sunday, when I realized I had lost treasure, a sad day!  

When no words came to the emotions, and nothing could help express my devastation,  I found my fingers searching in Google  for quotations on photography while absorbing The Last of the Mohicans soundtrack with my ears. 
(Seriously the best - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iyLpNNBOy8&t=8804s)

 There were plenty of noteworthy quotes, but the people that had the words I needed most are quoted and sprinkled throughout this post. 💙

 I live for profound words and great pictures.

"Photography is the story I fail to put into words."

Destin Sparks

"When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence."

Ansel Adams

Caption- Dad took the older two on a round-up so Mom spontaneously took the younger two
 on a breakfast date to Cracker Barrel