Tokens of Love

February - the month of love! OK, so I'm a few days behind 'that' day..you know, the very commercialized day of love. Here's my thought, why do we need a day set aside for it? Every day should be filled with tokens of love. The prompt for this post arises from my search to fill the walls in my new home with plenty of photographs and art. Considering that I am a photographer, have boxes and boxes, albums upon albums and more than too many framed images to count, should make this a simple project, right? Hah! Those who know me, are full aware that I can't leave a simple task just so.
After putting up a few framed photographs, I realize that I just, absolutely must have new frames ...and well, new photos. I use this an excuse to start shooting more photos, of my family, still lifes and then some.
I sell great photos of my art images, but do I order any of those for myself to display? Well not many, yet. So I'm on smugmug and etsy, searching for some awesome landscape images - places my husband and I lived over the years, San Francisco, the Pacific Northwest, and find many great images. But I'm still not satisfied.
Then this weekend, I'm in my bedroom and just staring at this HUGE blank wall behind our bed...I mean, I have tons of wall space to fill. I never thought this would be a problem.
But, it is.
So, there I am staring and just staring. That wall seems to be growing the longer I stare at it. And then it hits me! I go and pull out two very small special photo albums with photos from many years ago. As I'm looking, I see a theme forming. Yes, turns out it's about love. The love of my family!
There's the image of my husband and boys drawing a heart on the sidewalk with our initials - so cute. And the close-up of the finished art. I reworked it to show different versions. The first image on the top row, left, is the original.
And the photo of my boys in front of a heart-shaped rose bush taken on Mother's Day.
And another Mother's Day photo, one of my favorites - my husband and boys picking wildflowers along a country dirt road in NW Arkansas.
I'm making them all black and white, with the exception of our boys in front of the rose bush. Square format on these, then into square frames to create a gallery of images on that bedroom wall. My husband loves the idea!
There is one image I have not shot and plan to...of the heart shaped rocks my kids have collected for me over the years.
Well, don't wait for a 'day' to tell those you love them. Show them every minute of every day. Oh, one other thing. While we all strive for perfection, especially in photographs, think about which photos you really love! Most of mine were shot with either 110 film or less than quality 35mm film some 20 plus years ago. I hope this inspires you to pull out a box of your old photos and display them.