Is it pointless to have a blog post on photography that doesn’t include any photos?
Maybe, but I’m going to try it anyway!
This is Amy Sorensen, and the reason I’m not sharing a photo today is because I haven’t taken it yet. You’ll see why after I share my idea instead.
Every month on my blog, I try to write a monthly summary. I include everyday details from all of my family members’ lives…what we did and saw, sometimes what we ate, what we read and watched and argued over and loved. (Here is August’s monthly review so you know what I’m talking about.) Sometimes I include photos, sometimes I don’t.
I like doing this for a variety of reasons, one of which is that it makes going back to scrapbook the past easier. It gives me some details to work with when I can’t remember exactly what was happening. It also helps me feel like I am stopping to appreciate this time right now. To observe and remember and even sometimes celebrate a little bit.
I say that I “try to” write a monthly summary because I don’t always get it done. Sometimes I forget altogether. Sometimes it is a week (or, yes…two) into the next month before I sum up the previous months. But I’m trying to be more proactive and regularly-scheduled on my blog, and a few weeks ago I came up with an idea to help me get this post done on the first day of every month.
Every month, on the last day, I’m going to take some “goodbye ___________” photos. (So this month would be, yes, “goodbye September.”) A few images that visually represent that month’s emotional “feel.” I might never scrapbook these pictures—but I will use them on my blog post.
I don’t have a picture to share with you because I already know the image I want to say goodbye to this September with. And I can’t take it until this afternoon when school’s over. Every day, one of my 9-year-old’s responsibilities is to pick up the apples that have fallen from our tree. Homework, snack, then apples before he can play with friends. Sometimes he’s happy with this chore, sometimes not so much, but it’s a thing he does almost every day in September. That’s the photo I want: taken at a low angle, so I get the grass and some of the fallen apples, and maybe his hand picking one up, all in that glowy, late-afternoon light that only happens in the fall.
You’ll have to imagine it.
Then, tomorrow, I’ll have an image to go with my September summary!
I’m posting this without that picture, though, to encourage you to watch today for your “goodbye September” image. To challenge you to take some photos that summarize how the end of this month feels for you. Maybe share them on your blog, maybe make a layout with them. Maybe just write some details about them in your journal. But watch for them!
Happy snapping!
