The Reversed Lens » Reversed Lens Photography – Oregon Wedding, Event and Portrait Photography

When I lay in bed and think about what I’d love to have to feel like a fantastic mom is… so many things. But the thing is, they aren’t things, those things that I want. I can think of lots of gifts that my husband could get for me, certainly, but he knows what they are. (I’m notoriously picky and so I actually have a long list, prompted by old requests from his mom, that I add something to whenever I think of something that I’d adore. Things like a kitchen scale, or the Louisa May Alcott book that I loved as a little girl and misplaced somewhere along the way, or a Le Creuset baker.)

But what I really want, deep down, is to know that I’m doing it all right. That validation is the holy grail. In the lonely wee moments, when I’m examining my life, I want to know that I’m giving my girls what they need to be happy, satisfied little souls. And I want to know that they love me, that they feel how deeply I ached for them and now adore them that they’re here. How much I treasure their little individual quirks, the things that make them them, even if there are times that those little things make me want to hide for a moment. And I want them to love each other, too. My sister and I have the usual relationship of two females growing in close proximity but she is still the first person that I call when something wonderful or crazy is happening. And what do I look at, when I want to be reminded of all of that? I go to my favorite photographs. There is one of my two girls that we had taken when Paige was just learning to walk, and Sophie is holding onto her little hands and looking so thrilled. She asked me to put it in her room so that when “I wake up I can see my baby sister.” I look at it, too, and think, “I must be doing something right.” There’s one of Sophie and I, too, and that one reminds me of a better side of us when it’s really needed.

As a photographer I love knowing that I can gift my clients with a tangible reminder of their own inner lives, too. I get to take a peek inside of the emotions of life, the real stuff, when children aren’t watching their smiles and moms forget to look perfect, and the life just happens. I photographed one of my favorite clients recently, to celebrate the birth of their new little baby Kate. You’ll see her pictures soon. But first, you get to see the inside moments from that session of her girls. The first picture is one that Lindsay is ordering for her mom, who was able to be there for the session. The other two are a surprise that she doesn’t know that she’s getting for her own Mother’s Day present (I hope she’s not reading this!) And the last one I had to include because it is so perfectly these two little loves. Yes, they are the two crazies that I love running after. But in the quiet moments they are so sweet, and they really do love each other. I loved being able to capture that, too. When Lindsay first saw these photos she said, “When I just want to scream I can walk away and look at these and think, ‘Yes, those are my two sweet girls.’” Isn’t that what we all need, after all?