If you follow my blog regularly or know me personally, you’re familiar with my mention of my dear friend Ashley who passed away in 2005. Yesterday would have been her 24th birthday. I wish I had more photos of her. Of us. I wish that about most people I have lost, and for being still a fairly young person, I have lost a lot of people that mattered deeply to me, though thankfully, none since Ashley. It seems the older I get, the more time behind me, the faster time is passing me by. I remember when a year seemed forever, now I cant imagine where the last 6 years went. My grandmother shares that sentiment but adds a 0 behind the 6. Time is like water finding it’s way, it carves a path, becomes a trickle and sculpts and widens it’s way until it rushes by in rapids, and we are as powerless to stop it as we would be fighting the force of the waterfall; and what remains besides the photographs? Besides home videos, and letters and cards, and inanimate objects that care a far higher value sentimentally than monetarily because they remind us of loved ones, of moments we cherish and can never return to. It’s a bittersweet nostalgia at times, because for me I’ve found no pain to be as heart wrenchingly suffocating as being inundated with the memory of moments of love and joy when you are overwhelmed by a time of current grief and loss.
In my humble opinion Love is the mother of all other emotions, in it’s own time it has the potential to inspire every other thing we feel, even hate in a misguided way. Mostly though I find things done with love have the power to reciprocate and grow exponentially in this world more love in other hearts, and for me photographs inspire a lot of love and memories of love.
In memory of Ashley, and in the spirit of Help Portrait I will be extending our offer until Thanksgiving, because there is so much for me to be thankful this year, and a big component of that is how many amazing people I know and have met this year who have been sharing their stories, and personal struggles, and strength with us.
So between now and then Send us an email to JessicaLark@CoutureManor.com and tell us why you or someone you know deserves a complimentary photo session from our studio this holiday season. Tell us your story, tell us your struggle, tell us who matters most to you and what you want to preserve, tell us why it’s important to you. It doesnt have to be tragic, you dont have to be up for the nobel peace prize or do anything amazing to some crazy standard, everyone deserves to have the moments and people that matter to them preserved and kept sacred and safe, just tell us what you cherish about yourself and life and what/who you want photographed, and why.
Please be sure that you are willing for your stories to be shared as we will be sharing the winners on various social mediums. Thank you all for letting me have a little room in your life and world, each of you are inspirational and wonderful people and I am blessed to know you, even if only as online acquaintances. ❤
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