Nature's Waking

Nature's Waking by Jackie
 

Memories & Cell Phones

Memories & Cell Phones by Lisa

 

Birth, X-rays, ball gloves, jump ropes, army men, post cards, proms, graduation, weddings...the memories of motherhood are never ending.  The memories continue to gather with cell phones and the internet but they're all wonderful memories.  I thought about doing this picture in black & white but my memories are a riot of colors so I stayed with color. 

Motherhood

From the beginning, 

We are preparing

to let them go.

But we never do.

The first photo is of my friend with her sweet baby girl who was very premature but was strong and is now a healthy and happy two year old.

The second photo is one that I take at every wedding. There is something so beautiful to me about the Mother's hands and the delicate buttons on the back of her daughter's wedding dress.Certainly not the first time she will help her daughter dress, but perhaps the last.

The third photo is of a mother watching her son's wedding ceremony. The groom's mother always cries the most and this was surprising to me the first few weddings that I photographed. I believe that we, mothers of boys, really struggle with giving our boys away to another woman. Perhaps it is because our boys don't grow up fantasizing and planning their wedding day like little girls do and so we just don't prepare ourselves. I'm not here yet, but someday I will be...

The fourth is a mother and daughter in the final moments before her daughter's wedding. 

The fifth is of a mother, a beautiful and graceful woman, comforting her 21 month old baby boy three weeks before he passed away, after a year of fighting the cancer that finally took him.

Motherhood, in all it's moments, is beautiful.

These were all taken with a Canon EOS 5D MarkII, with various lenses. I made up for my previous months of iPhone photos and not posting at all last month with more pictures than I was supposed to share. I hope you don't mind my not being able to narrow the moments. I love the Mom's that I get to work with. 

Tenderness

Tenderness by Patty

Motherhood:  Seeing tenderness of siblings; of best friends
Taken with an iPhone

An unexpected moment between big brother and little sister.  (My apologies for the other unexpected...)

Nature, The Original Mother

Nature, The Original Mother  by Karen


Canon PowerShot (easy to grab and go)
morning light
This slightly out-of-focus photo is like my own decades-old eyes.  As I am peaking through the layers of flowers in my garden to see the bumble bee that is so busy with gathering food for her next generation I cannot even see her wings clearly.  Nor can you as you gaze at the scene with me!

This fuzzy focus now looks to me like some of those Impressionists' paintings Ann and I saw at the Crystal Bridges art museum yesterday where you get the mood or 'impression' of what you are seeing without the clarity.  It was a beautiful place... the art, the architecture and the landscape.

I practiced this shot 2 days and was able to capture the bee's wings clearly but I prefer this one!

Vivian Maier, street photographer

http://www.vivianmaier.com/

This woman was a nanny in the second half of the last century.  Apparently, she took her children and camera out on daily excursions and took quick photos of everything.  She went through the activity of getting the 100,000 negatives processed and then never shared the photos, not even with the kids or their parents!  She hoarded her photos along with many other things and ended up putting it into storage units when she moved to Chicago.

It wasn't until 2007 when she stopped paying the rent on her staorage unit that they auctioned off her hoard of newspapers, etc., The man who bought the contents found her stash of negatives.  He dscovered a treasure.  Take a look... she makes city life look interesting.

Small But Mighty by Lisa

The moment I had my first child I was motivated to set an example so that they would grow up to be assertive people that would take their world by the horns.  Even if they were apprehensive about putting themselves out there I wanted them to know that they would learn more from trying and failing than from never trying at all.  My kids still motivate me and now my grandchildren have added to their motivational army.

Erin's web site

http://www.erinmoulden.com/blog/

Just a reminder that Erin is a professional photographer and even thought she uses her IPhone for our photos here, with her professional equipment, she and Justin get to record great moments in peoples' lives.  I included the blog address for you to view.

Procrastinators' Motivator

 And Yes... Late as usual