And why it's worth the cost.
Hey there mamas. Remember when you were young? Remember running through the grass barefoot? Remember waking up and looking outside in the summer and planning how you would spend it riding your bike all. stinking. day? Remember waking up to the smell of mama cooking bacon and brewing coffee? Remember sitting at the breakfast table blurry eyed and laughing till your belly hurt at your brother making toot noises with his mouth? Remember frog hunting in the back yard as the sun dipped low? Remember the sound of cicadas humming, sweat on your brow, as you ate a dripping popsicle on the back porch way passed your bedtime?
Remember summers at grandmas? The family farm? Grandma and Grandpa's endless rows of white cotton...running through it arms stretched out. No cares. Just wonderful memories being made, unknown to your 7 year-old self. Swinging on the old rusty swingset out back...the creaking and squelching back and forth, back and forth. What about Fall leaf jumping till you were itchy? Spring water-hole swimming till you could eat a horse? Winter snowball making in the front yard of your childhood home till your fingers were frozen? I do. And when I think back, I long to be there again. To see my mama at 30 years young. To see Mimi's wrinkled hands cupped around my waist, reading to me. To the feeling of the world whizzing by, hair flapping behind me, as I rode my bike through the neighborhood on a perfect 75 degree spring day. Not a care in the world. I wish I had photos. Tangible, real, photos. A film. To tell the history of my making. To touch and look at over and over. Videos that let me hear Mimi's voice. Sure, I have some posed photos of myself. A few candids documenting us with our new Christmas presents. School photos. And I even have some of me and my sister, standing shoulder to shoulder, cheesing at the camera. But what I don't have is those in-between moments. The moments that made me who I am. The moments of me wading through a creek bed in a city apartment complex that created the adventurous heartbeat that still keeps rhythm in my chest today. Documented artfully...to give me all the feels of what made up my childhood.
I so wish I did. I wish I had some of my history documented in a film or stack of photos. I can tell my own children about those times. But what if I could SHOW them? What if?
Time moves as swiftly as the river flows. Every passing second gone as fast as the next approaching. I pick up my camera every single day. Sure, I do it because I love photography. I thrive on documenting life. I am a born creative. But I also do it for them. For me. For their children. For the generations to come. I feel an urgency to document it all. I would give anything. Anything, to hear my Mimi's voice again. What if you could ensure you won't miss those memories? What if your memories were made into a piece of art you could hold on to forever?
The rise of digital technology and iphones has ensured that most of what we do will be documented. We blog our kids Christmas program, snap our goofy karaoke ad-libs in the car pick-up lane, we Facebook trips to the zoo, we Instagram last night's sunset. The trouble is, mamas, is that you're behind the camera. You are missing from your family's history. They will have every Easter program documented from birth to college, but where are you in the photos?
So I bet you get where I am going with this, don't you? I am a photographer. I love to take photos. But more than that, I love to document life, as it happens...painted with beautiful light. I am a historian of the photographic kind. Preserving history one photo at a time. Owning a camera does not make me a photographer. Artistry makes me a photographer. I want to share it. Artists live in a world of creating something from the very center of your raw emotion and then putting it on display for the world to gaze at. It's what drives us. I long to create not only my own memories, but to show you how beautiful your own life is. To make you cry (yes, this is my goal. lol). Not sad tears, but tears of joy.
I could never put a cost on the photos of Mimi. There is no amount of money that could ever replace memories. And that is why I cannot sell myself short and charge what the local big box store is charging for sit and smile pictures. I have 12 years of experience behind my camera. It has taken me a lot of hard work and dedication, and growing, and failing and then trying again and again to be able to document on a professional level. It's a mastery that has required a lot of blood, sweat and tears from me (not to mention it's hugely expensive to own all the gear!). And so, I place a cost on my artistry. It's HARD to do. Hard to put a dollar sign in front of my art. I put a lot into my clients. I get to know them. We laugh together, we cry together. It's a friendship. I don't take what I do lightly. It's never ever sit and smile for me. It's, let me get a glimpse into your life so I can show you how beautiful this phase of life is.
If you have read down this far...well...thanks. lol. This is a pouring out of my heart. It is a response to a grappling that I have had with myself over placing a dollar sign in front of my work. I have been turned down too many times to count by people who just "can't pay the price" I am asking for my work. Please know, I am not discounting budgeting, or hardships. These are very real things. And if you just flat cannot afford to pay for custom photography, then you just can't. But what I want you to come away from this article thinking is...what is charged is worth it. Custom, documentary, artistic, family history-making photography is worth the money that it costs. If you ever make room in your budget to hire me...it's WORTH IT. Artistry is a gift. It is not developed overnight. It is not a gift everyone has. Not everyone can draw, not everyone can play professional sports, and not everyone is a photographer. It's WORTH IT to pay someone to share their God-given gift with you....memories are worth it.
Mamas, make a plan. Now, next week, next month, next year, 5 years down the line...make a goal to hire a professional photographer to document you with your husband, you babies your grandparents. At home. Mundane life turned into art. Your beautiful, ordinary, bacon cooking, coffee brewing, early rising, kids running wild, life. Life is beautiful, and short. It will always be worth it to preserve these memories. Take a chance on it. I promise you will not be disappointed.
Tori J Cox is a published documentary and lifestyle photographer located in the Texas Panhandle. Her work has been featured on numerous photography sites as well as being published in dearPhotographer magazine. She is available for travel around the great state of Texas as well as national travel for shoots. Contact Tori J Cox to document your next trip to grandma and grandpa's, your next little one's birth, a day at the park, a day at home cooking pancakes, or for no other good reason except you realize life is whizzing by and deserves to be documented!
email: tori@torijcox.com