So, here we are, at the start of a new year. January is a funny old month: New Year resolutions, clearing out and making way for ‘the new’. Countering the greyness with exciting plans for the year ahead – making a bucket list. We also reflect on the year that has just ended -the good bits and the bad. Our reflections are based on our memories, so naturally the big things are well remembered, be they happy or sad times. Little moments can sometimes be mislaid, and as life moves apace, they are shaken down in our memory pile.
One little moment I had many months ago, was at a birthday party. Amongst all the fun that was going on, people catching up with their relatives etc., a lady was chatting with her grandchildren as they looked through a box of old photographs. They were all laughing, smiling and listening intently as the grandmother told them about the people in the photographs and her memories brought the pictures back to life. Of course, they could have viewed these on a screen, everyone could have watched them at the same time and it would have been lovely. But that intimate moment, with the tangible prints in the hand, would not have occurred. There really is something special about holding an actual photo in your hand.
To me, printed photographs taken today are as priceless as ever. There is a real possibility for chunks of social history to be lost forever, on crashed phones, corrupted hard drives and out-dated storage devices. Treasured photographs, pertinent to our own families and our lives, validate who we are, especially as children. In a fast-moving world, they provide a moment of calm, even as we walk past them in our homes.
So print your ‘special moment’ snaps before they become lost, make family album books, with space for writing information beside them. Keep them safe -they are heirlooms.
Your heirlooms. As far as equine portraits are concerned, special moments continually happen because there is a special bond between a horse and their human friend. Around the yard, on a favourite walk, mucking out, tacking up etc. However these can easily be missed as one is, quite rightly, engrossed in the moment. So, alongside the portraits of your photoshoot, I capture them for you.