Project 52 | Week 40

I’ve been shooting a lot lately, which is great because I truly do love what I do, but not so great because after each shoot comes a ton of work and the hustle and bustle of back to school mania has left this mama T I R E D.  I’m not a shoot-and-burn photographer, so that means after each shoot comes hours of editing, then more time spent uploading photos to an online gallery, then an in person ordering session (which can take 1-2 hours, sometimes more!), then I order the prints, package them up pretty when they arrive, and drive them over to my clients home and help them hang them up.  Phew!  I’m exhausted just typing this out!  Anyway, the point of this is that the kids have noticed my increased workload and have started complaining.

Last week after I missed another dinner  because of a shoot, Oliver asked me if he could hire me to take his pictures, “so we could spend time together,” and so he could “you know, be a model for you like the other kids you take pictures of.”  This kid has the (pretty consistent) ability to melt my heart.  A few days later he said, “can you please just read with me instead of editing pictures of those people?”  That was a sure sign that I was working too much.  That, and the fact that my eyeballs had started feeling like they were being held up by knives.  So this afternoon, I grabbed my camera and my guy and we went outside, just the two of us, to take some pictures.  It was the perfect time for an Oliver Shoot really, because he just lost his two front teeth and I want to capture his ridiculously cute smile to remember when that big gap inevitably fills in.

The shoot didn’t last  a long time, and after a little while he asked me to take pictures of Lila, who was “reading” in the doorway because that’s just the kind of kid he is.  But I wouldn’t.  This shoot was just for him.  This was for the kid who started a special notebook with me so we can leave each other (love) notes every day. But this picture–this perfect, beautiful picture–is just for me…..