Considering Lilies

As I walked around Salt Lake today I was just so excited because it was/is spring and warm and I didn't need a jacket and I could wear sandals! Seriously! It was the perfect day....
But as I wandered the city, and walked across temple square I had to stop and stand for a moment.
It was quiet and warm. The air smelled of cherry blossoms and the color was astounding and I couldn't take the smile off my face.

"Consider the lilies of the field".

One of my favorite song lyrics came to mind and as I stood in all that perfect  setting it simply hit me, once again, that often times in life we find ourselves in winter.
It gets cold, dark, and stagnant.
The winds blow and sometimes you feel buried under foot after foot of heavy, wet, snow.
But what I, and we, often forget is that just because there are clouds doesn't mean that there is no sun.  And just because it's frozen now, doesn't mean it won't warm up and be spring.
Here in Utah, in our little desert, it takes all that snow to make those flowers bloom. They desperately need the moisture it provides.
When we are in trials it can seem hard to remember that they won't last forever, and sometimes it seems that if one more person tells you that "it will all be alright in the end, you'll see" you'll explode. But the thing is, it WILL be alright. It WILL end. The snow melts, the clouds go away, spring arrives, and we remember that winter is only one part of the year.
And most importantly.  We are not alone.  God will not leave us. Just as he clothes those beautiful flowers, he will clothe us.
"Consider the lilies of the field,
How they grow, how they grow.
Consider the birds in the sky,
How they fly, how they fly....
He clothes the lilies of the field.
He feeds the birds of the sky.
He clothes the lilies of the field,
He feeds the lambs in His fold,
And He will heal those who trust Him,
And make their hearts as gold."
(Lyrics from Consider the Lilies)

Moments and Memories

We never knew we were making memories.  We just knew we were having fun.

As a child I knew my four seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction from winter.  Known for having the best on earth, people travel from all over the world to experience Utah’s snow, but any child in Utah will tell you that the “perfect snow” isn’t that ski powder, and it lasts only for a moment.  That wet, sticky, wonderful cold that we all think of when we see snowball fights and snowmen, lasts only for a day, and falls only a few times a year.  Once it stops snowing, the cold sets in, and the dry snow turns to ice, slush, and powder, and the moments of today turn to the memories of tomorrow.

The same is for any moment in our lives.  Life doesn’t happen in minutes.  It happens in moments.  I began taking pictures fifteen months ago when I lost my childhood best friend and realized that in fourteen years, I had less than ten pictures of him.  Those moments, like that “perfect snow” crystalized and became memories.   But it shouldn’t take the loss of a loved one to realize that, because by then it’s too late.  In “Moments and Memories” I document a “perfect snow” day as it happens, capturing those instants so that when the time come, they are just as frozen as the air and snow that gave birth to them.

(There are over 50 photos in the final collection of this project but I have just included a few)

This project started out as a deep look on depression with technology.  I had the scenes planned out, the set put together, and I was simply waiting for these two to come home and be my models.  

When they came home we got talking and laughing because of how stressed we all were and how we simply wanted to just go out and play in the snow as it was a perfect snow day.  I couldn’t bring myself to get excited about my photography project and threw out that I wanted to go on a snow photograph adventure and that if they wanted to join they could.

This book is the adventured that followed that.  

But the special thing about these photos is that they reminded me why I love taking pictures and why I do it.  In the last 15 months I have taken more than 20,000 photos, and less than 1,000 of those were planned out photos that I staged and took with forethought.  As I took these I was reminded that I take photos to capture the soul and the memory, not the smile and perfection.  That’s not what makes photography special. 

And now, even when their footprints in the snow are covered or melted, and someday we all move on to different colleges, we still have the memory.  We still have that moment.

And that, it what photography is about.