Posts in category: Quotes

The rest of the time?  I seem to be following my children’s lead.  Watching to see where their interests lie, what their personalities are like, what they need from me.  I’m very conscious of not wanting to push them in a direction they don’t want to go, and to let them explore the world, their interests and their capabilities in their own time.

So when I came across this quote it really resonated with me.

Surely doing that is just asking for resistance and resentment?

I was on the train on Saturday, travelling home from a newborn/family photo session with a good friend of mine from Uni, already feeling a bit warm and fuzzy from all the love that was in their home.

Then, when we stopped at one of the stations along the way, I looked out of the window and saw a little girl, probably about 10 years old, run off the train and straight into the arms of her waiting Grandmother.  The two of them shared a wonderfully big hug; so obviously delighted to see each other.

And it just made me think of the opening scenes of one of my favourite films, Love Actually.

The film opens with footage from the arrivals lounge at Heathrow airport, and Hugh Grant’s voice telling us that it’s a great place to go to see how much love there really is in the world.  And then this wonderful line:

It’s so easy to see the bad in the world; to read the papers and watch the news and believe that we’re surrounded by anger and hate.

I much prefer to see the good.  

To look out for those little gestures of love between people; the old couple holding hands as they walk along, the Mum-to-be gently stroking her bump, the Dad learning to style his daughter’s hair.

When you watch out for it, you really will see love everywhere you look!

I’ve written before about how important I truly believe it is to make sure that we exist in photos.  Mainly so that in years to come there will be something for our children to find when they go looking to find who we were when they were young.

And getting in front of the camera more, as well as getting the shots of our loved ones, is something we always seem to plan to do.

But the thing is, we think we have plenty of time.

We tell ourselves that we’ll get round to taking that family photo tomorrow.  That we’ll take them once we’ve been to the hairdressers, or lost that last bit of baby weight.  We’ll do it tomorrow.

But, what if there is no tomorrow?

Who knows when the time will run out?  And when it does, of course we’ll leave behind a lifetime of wonderful memories.  But those fade, and shift, and change over time.  Photos though, they’ll always be there, a tangible link to the past, a trigger to bring back those fading memories.

If there are people that you care about, capture them while you can.  And, please, get someone to capture you while you’re at it.

About 20 minutes into one of the playlists  ‘Chasing cars’ by Snow Patrol started playing, and it dragged my attention away from my work.  I sat and just listened to whole song, smiling at the way he sings the word ‘here’ and generally loving the lyrics.

The chorus though, I really love.

I think maybe I need to start doing a bit of meditation to clear some space in my head every day, hmmm, now that’s something to look into. I’ll add it to my to-do list!

Not this year though.  This year I’ve been waiting, watching.  Determined to savour the beautiful colours and the change in the air.

So I was really pleased to get out for 2 walks this weekend.  One along the front in Swansea bay, which was just lovely, the path lined with trees that were gently dropping their leaves.  And the second through Singleton Park, with a wonderful family for a portrait photography session.

Both times I made a conscious effort to take in my surroundings, enjoying the changes that were going on around me.  Saying a quiet goodbye to summer and a big hello to Autumn and all it’s beauty.

My Mum always talks about how people’s eyes, and faces even, twinkle when they’re genuinely happy and smiling.

When Nerys was about 10 days old my family came to Swansea to meet her, and my Mum and I both swear that Nerys gave her a smile at one point.  Now, I know you’ll be thinking that it was most likely just gas, but see, she twinkled when she did it.

Her eyes sparkled as she looked at her Mamie and smiled.  So we’re still claiming it as her first, proper smile!

And my Mum also tells me that she knew that my relationship with my husband was the real deal when she came for a visit and met him for the first time, when we’d been together for a few months.  She says that, again, I just twinkled when he was around.  You can see this ina photo of me from my sister’s wedding, where I’m looking straight at the camera that he’s holding.  I’m definitely twinkly in that photo!

That’s what I love to capture when I photograph other people.  Those genuine expressions that come from feeling genuine emotions at the time of the photo being taken.  Those are the photos that we look back on so fondly, when we can see how we felt at that time, and have those feelings come rushing back along with the memories of that time.

Ever since Rhys started going to nursery school last year there’s been a lot of talk from him about winning.  He’ll want to race to be the first person to get to the front door so that he can ‘win’.  Almost anything can be turned into a competition with him!

So when he ran a 1k race with his Nana at the weekend I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear that he was quite competitive.  After the race we all told him how well he had done, and how proud we were of him for running the whole way.  And then I made a point of making sure he’d actually had FUN doing it!  Because really, I don’t want him taking part in an event like that just because he wants to win it.  I want him to do it because he finds it fun.  I mean, he’s 4!

It has all made me think though, about how I need to talk to him more about competition and how the important thing is to just do his best.  It doesn’t matter if he wins or loses, it really doesn’t.

This quote from the ‘Sunscreen‘ song says it all for me;

“The race is long.  And in the end, it’s only with yourself.”

I just love those words.  And, by the way, I could quite happily quote that entire song, I just love it!