Clairelyseen Photography: Open

When did I start to love photos?

I know that at most of our family events growing up, someone had a camera... for sure my mom, or one of my grandmas. I'm pretty sure my grandma Kimball snapped this classic family photo of us in 1966!

I remember the little flash cube sitting on top of the Kodak camera, temporarily blinding us all as the photos were taken, and how that intrigued me. And I remember the fun of getting photos back to look at them, and putting them in albums or scrapbooks so we could look at them over and over. I loved all those photos.

Many years later, in 1984, I bought my first camera...a little "point and shoot" so that I could capture my life in Spain when I moved there to teach school for a year. Maybe I had one in Germany earlier that summer when I served there, but I don't remember...I just remember buying that first camera myself and being so excited I had one of my own!

When Dave and I married, I inherited his Pentax film camera, and then kept trading and upgrading; Dave's love for photography, and my love for photos made us a camera/photo loving family, especially once the kids arrived!

Seriously, I think the Kodak camera store in downtown Ostrava was in business because of me and a few other missionary moms who frequented them OFTEN. I can even remember running into each other there a time or two! I developed an awful lot of film at that store through the years.

Then came the digital age - and more photos! I didn't have to be as careful about what I snapped then, knowing I could just delete what didn't work. I loved that too, snapping to my heart's content.

During all those years, our kids learned to enjoy it as well. They were great about posing, smiling, and letting their mom record their lives through photos. And they even began grabbing the camera and taking photos themselves, and continued on through their high school years. Wish I had a few of those early photos of theirs to post, but they're on my computer back home in Czech.

It made me happy that they grew to love photos like their mom did! We would spend hours pouring over photos from vacations, from trips to the States with grandparents and cousins, photos from overnights with friends, of our sweet dogs, and birthdays and holidays and school days and lots of just normal days. Every one of those moments, captured forever in a photo.

Still, I was never a "photographer" - I just took photos!

However, somewhere along the way, our kids became photographers - taking photos with any eye for the art and beauty of it, not just preserving moments. That made me happy too!

And then, just a few weeks ago, one of the kids took it a step further.

Claire developed her own website for a photography business while she's in college.

Take a look HERE at Clairelyseen Photography!

I don't think it's just a mom enjoying her daughter's photos. I honestly think the Lord has gifted her with an ability to see, capture, and bring out an unspeakable joy in her photos. And that really delights me!

She's developed that ability and gift on her blog for many years, and now she's taking it a step further. 

If by any chance you're in the Chicago area, and you'd like some photos taken - she's your girl! I can't wait to see what the Lord does with her vision for capturing the lives of others through her gift of photography.