Life Lessons from a Simple Photo Shoot

Have you ever had “one of those days”?    I thought I had one recently…Dreamwinds Photo Day 2015.   It was a hot and sunny day and we had hired our favourite photographer to come shoot some photos of our farm, our horses and our family.   I was looking to grow our gallery for our business posts and website and had some specific thoughts in mind on what I wanted to get out of the session.   I had visions of gallery quality shots of my magestic horses running freely with their manes and tails flowing, but I was also excited to capture that “perfect family photo”.   You know the one…where everyone is posed perfectly, looking perfectly un-posed and natural with a soft background and perhaps a light wind in our hair.  Is that so much to ask?

Well it seemed my subjects had other ideas and as the day went on, while we were having lots of fun, my dreams of the perfect shot were fading. The type A in me could not believe that my horses & dogs couldn’t hold it together long enough for one decent shot!   Then I got the photos back…and I was reminded of a few valuable life lessons:

1. “Imperfection is beauty.  Madness is genius and it is better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.’ – Marilyn Monroe
   Thank you Marilyn.  In this attempt at our first family shot with Dirk and my 3 geldings, it all goes awry as the horses break formation and squeeze in.   I am reminded here that we are actually often ridiculous, rarely boring and, let’s be honest, never perfect no matter how hard we try…and that’s ok. 

    

2. “You can’t control everything.  Sometimes you just need to relax and have faith that things will work out.  Let go a little and just let life happen.” – Kody Keplinger
   For me, this photo is what it’s all about.   That horse-human connection.   You just don’t get that from a posed portrait shot and had I not let go of the reins so to speak and allowed this moment to transpire, I may have missed the point all together. 

    

3. ‘Be Yourself, Everyone Else is Taken” – Oscar Wilde
   This is Play-Doh…for real.  We gave him the show name “Play of the Day” because he was forever doing something memorable and goofy.   Somehow after seeing this, the glamour shot wouldn’t have seemed right anyway.  Our authentic self is always our best self. 

    

4. “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need’. – The Rolling Stones
   There is no getting around it, labour of love or not, work on the farm can be hard and tiring.  And I’ll admit, it can be made harder and more tiring by my constant pursuit of perfection.   Frankly, I needed this photo.   It makes me smile and somehow allows me to exhale. 

    

So we may not be appearing on the front cover of Vanity Fair anytime soon, but there is no doubt in my mind that I got my perfect family photo and some gentle reminders that I wanted to share.  When all is said and done, we shouldn’t be so concerned about what should be that we forget to fully appreciate what is.  There was no doubt about it as I looked through the photos…this is my life and my crazy family and I wouldn’t have it any other way!   Captured perfectly. 🙂

photo credit: CAP Photographic Solutions