unedited.

Today, a good camera is quite accessible to the ordinary fellow like you or I and you can with a little effort take a great photo, and with a little more effort sometimes clasped with talent, edit a photo and turn it into a breathtaking  says-a-thousand-words-picture. Who doesn’t love a great photo?

I love how a beautiful photo can take you into another world.

I've noticed and enjoyed friends, or others igniting their own personal (professional) photography brand. Really nifty way of spreading talent, making business, which I think is really cool. Such talent  could take a photo of me in my pyjamas and after airbrushing, contrasting, colouring - chuck me on the front of a magazine cover. Okay, maybe not the person in the pyjamas, but you get my drift.

I admire friends who have shed their wonderful talent in photography, and I adore the photos a dear friend, Leanne Leatitagaloa, who shot of my family earlier this year. She captured the essence of what our family is. That is - when Campbell or I aren't looking forward to some shut-eye after work and after our four little monkeys have out-swung their energy out for the day.

So, for awhile I've wanted to blog about my thoughts of imagery, photos. 

Unedited photos.

How amazing are the various Apple i-gadjets, instilled with self-capturing technology, inbuilt cameras  in phones, desktops, laptops, iPads, and the like. And what a practical invention. As a mother, with all my babes at home, none of which at school, our days can be filled a lot, or quite the opposite. Being homebound can create fun, or otherwise, lots of wriggles that haven't been wriggled out. I love capturing these moments on 'PhotoBooth' an application on our MacBook laptop. I'm almost always in my pyjamas, whilst with the kids I try not to suffer them being in their pyjamas all day. Now the older three - Luaipou aged 4, Vaiola aged 3 and Bruce aged 2 - will basically dress themselves It's always a grand day when you have the delivery man, or unexpected visitors at 4pm and you greet them in your pyjamas and wonderfully poised bed-hair. This is our life. And I love it, I do.

Over the last two years or thereabout, the kids and I have embraced the world of the inbuilt camera in our computers. Which also include video-capturing options. As much as I love our professional and beautiful edited photos, I've also embraced the everyday photos that we take of ourselves. It catches the kids (& me) as we truly are. And perhaps the low mega-pixel, gives that relaxed casual feel. I love to look at these photos, and remember the day we had, the fun we had pulling faces, and I guess being their (proud) mummy, they are most relaxed and their true personalities come out. Some of our photos and videos are more vanity induced than others, which makes it all the more hilarious. Who doesn't have that natural tendency to do the 'fish-lips'? Okay, maybe my husband. But it's so much fun.

 

  

 

Just recently I stumbled upon photos that pleasantly surprised me.

My girls had taken photos of themselves without my knowing - posing, pulling faces, smiling and the like. It gave me a little insight into their sweet and somewhat confident little personalities that bring so much joy to our lives. What a sweet and funny surprise when I found these. Even sweeter, the ones where they had taken one of themselves altogether.

Out of focus. A little.

Siblings. I adore this one especially. 

Oh.

Dear.

Luaipou.

  

Lovely Vaiola's ‘after & before’ shot after cutting her own hair.

Donovan's second Mother. She is a wonderful girl & sister!

My thoughts as writing this post seemed progress to the following.
As humans, we want to edit out the bits in our lives, here and there so that we can have what we see as a perfect slate. I know that perfectionism of oneself will not be attained in this life. Some days I would definitely like to be perfect! Like a beautifully edited photo, it would be wonderful to airbrush out the flaws, the choices, the darkspots. All it takes is driving past an advert at a bus stop and seeing the 'perfect' person with the perfect features so delicately holding an ice cream to awaken natural feelings of wanting to be perfect whether they be inner qualities or physical beauty. 

But I know. I know I wouldn't have certain qualities that have come from experience, that have given me courage to make choices for me and my family today. I'm grateful for the imperfections that I can see with my human eye, and experience with my choices. I'm grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who has provided a way for me to return to that Heavenly Home again, with a Saviour, even Jesus Christ who can if I allow him, to edit, so to speak, the dark spots in my life.

I love and have instilled my heart the following 'words' which life today is so centered around beauty, more physical, and not enough on the spiritual. This gives me strength on particular days, moreso than others. It's a 'quote' I guess, that has come to fruition in my life and the wording has sprouted from my own feeling. I think of it often, especially in a world that focuses on physical beauty which is ever enticing.

The truest form beauty, is found in imperfection & difference.

I love photographs, imagery, and the power it can bring. I love the talent people have in experiencing their love for photography (and even better when they can practise on my family and me).

I also love self-capturing devices. They are great especially when there isn't another grown-up or able person around. There is only one favourite of all situational images.

Campbell and me - with our lovable monkeys.