Exposure: Week Thirty-one

A picture of 

a photography 

tradition.

I have made it widely known that I think long and hard before establishing a tradition. Traditions are bossy -- downright bossy. In a spirit of self-imposed authority, they offer free tickets for nice, long guilt trips if broken, and they will bind you quicker than you can say, "Let's do that again!" For one given to procrastination, like myself, the likelihood of keeping a plethora of traditions is slimmer than slim. For all these reasons, I am slow to create them.

That is not to say that I dislike traditions; in fact, there are some that I truly love -- and those would include what I like to call "photography traditions."

When my oldest child was three months old, we visited a local portrait studio. I loved his little under-the-blanket shot so much, I decided to do the same with all of the other children. When I was pretty sure that I had given birth to a caboose, I gathered the portraits in one place for my husband:

A tradition well worth keeping for me.

Beginning with that year, I began bringing all of my children to the same studio for an annual group portrait. When I consider that this tradition has been ongoing since the fall of 1988, I laugh. Twenty-three consecutive years is a long time for such an endeavor, especially for me!

Whenever I look through the portrait album 

and watch my children grow up all over again, 

I am so grateful to have the years documented.

This last little tradition is more than thirty years old and was born one hot Sunday afternoon on my parents' patio. My dad, resident camera enthusiast, decided that family photos were in order: a couple of rolls of them . . .  ;-/ . . . and all before lunch! By the end of the photo shoot, we were past the point of cooperation. Finally, we resorted to creative sabotage. In one shot we all blew bubbles with our gum, and in another we all ran out of the shot, leaving him to be photographed alone. We continued until either we were out of ideas or he was out of film - I don't remember which. Over the years, we have traditionally mimicked our favorite of those shots: "Everybody look at Papa!"

It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.
~Henry James

~End Quote