Friday Favorites…Big Splash {The Woodlands, TX | Child Photographer}

I’ve taken so many images, and have so many different favorites for so many various reasons.  Social media, internet, and web-based portfolios are all great; but this online world we live in sometimes leads things to be a bit less personal.  I believe that every image has a story to tell, and that’s what I love doing for my clients so much!  I don’t always get a chance to tell the story behind every image though–what I love about it, what makes it special to me.  So, I thought I would start a weekly blog post that featured one of my favorite images…deconstructed.  The story behind it, the reasons I love it (whether they are technical reasons of lighting/composition/etc., or emotional ones about what and why the image makes me feel).  So check back every week–some of these shares will be personal ones, and others will come from clients’ sessions past and present…one of your images might be featured here!

How can I not love images of my son riding the waves at the beach :)?  There’s more to it than that though (there’s always more to the story, isn’t there?).  I don’t do a ton of action shots.  I would consider chasing toddlers around at a portrait session pretty action filled, but as far as true sports photography–it’s not what I do on a regular basis.  So, capturing the action in these shots for my son (he asked me to get “action shots” every time he went out to catch a wave), makes me proud.  In the first image, I love where he is on the wave when I captured him, with it curling in to the side and cresting above him, and I love that both of these will always remind me of a vacation we took largely at my son’s request to go to the beach.

Now, I don’t know if anyone else out there is/has experienced this, but recently my son has started being grumpy far too much for a 4 year old.  He whines about things, complains when he doesn’t get his way, and often acts like the little things are the end of the world–sometimes I feel like I’m living with a pint-size teenager.  I of course want him to be happy and carefree all the time, but know it’s not how life works.  In these images though, in these moment–he is truly happy, very care-free, and enjoying life like I want him to every second of every day.  They are the memories I want to hold onto.  They make me smile.

One last thing about these images that almost gives me goose bumps…my sister is a surfer, and every time she paddles out, she sticks her leg up in the air (subconciously,  not on purpose) just like my little boy is sticking his leg up as he rides these waves in.  And these weren’t the only images I saw that in.  Coincidence, maybe.  But to me, it’s a little bit of her showing through in him–and that’s a beautiful thing!