Things my daddy taught me...(the first in an infinitely recurring series)

This past Christmas, last month, I drew my daddy's name in our Christmas gift exchange. Not an easy task to buy for him. But back in October, he had expressed interest in some of my "framed" photography so that was a thought. The problem with giving my photos as a gift is that I never like to presume that any of my shots are worthy of someone else's "taste" in art. So, though I had a slight idea of what to give him, I had no specifics.

Then I remembered..... THE PICTURE!! All of my life, I have known of THE PICTURE. It is a beautiful work of art done by my Grandmother, my daddy's mom. She passed away before I was born, but the art has been rotated amongst the families for as long as I can remember. I also remember years ago that Daddy worked very dilligently (before Photoshop) shooting photos of the picture.

Here is where one lesson my daddy taught me comes into play. While I've often been told to find a specialty area with my photography, my daddy told me when I first started shooting, "Shoot everything!" I listened to him! Soooooo, two years ago (I believe) while waiting for the annual 42 Championship Game to be determined at our Family Round Up, I saw THE PICTURE on my cousin's wall. So, I switched around some lenses and shot probably 20 shots of it in about 10 seconds. Low light, poor preparation, reflections on the glass...but like Daddy said, shoot it all...ya never know.

I was at my "day job" when I had this idea for the gift, and I could hardly stand it until I could get home, sort through 1 million (or so) disks, and find the images I shot of THE PICTURE. I found it. Then I played with it. Worked on the lighting, sharpened it up...tried to remove the reflection. Then found a frame of approximate dimensions in my stack of frames (I do things backwards...find the "frame" and then scale the photo to match). Then for the next 6 days, I fretted and worried, and planned and thought. One thing I loved about the process...it involved 4 generations. My grandmother's work. My idea to "reproduce" it, my son and daughter helped with the planning and putting together of the frame, and my husband did the spray-painting of the frame. And, of course, Daddy would be getting the gift.

He seemed to like it. Had bought the hanging supplies a few days before he passed. I regret tremendously that I didn't get a shot of him with the gift. Well, I kind of got one, but as you will soon see, it was one of those "from the hip" shots. But again, I followed his advice, not only to shoot everything, but also to NEVER destroy a negative (or original version in this day of digital). So I found the imperfect photo. Just a captured moment on a crazy Christmas Day....that I'll never forget.