The Perfect in the Imperfect

I find myself dumping many more photos than I ever keep when I'm culling through personal shots, and it's always a little sad, a little guilt-provoking.  Another photo of sweet Henry in my Mac trashcan?  Woof.  It doesn't feel good.

Sure, part of it can be attributed to digital photography itself.  You can shoot and shoot and shoot, get five good shots you're satisfied with and not spend a dime without the production costs of developing film.  Maybe part of it is when I hand my camera over to Andrew, half of the photos aren't in focus (camera class for him has happened once this summer...teacher and student fail).  But it's also because as someone who's work is making beautiful photos for other families, photos that make you feel something, that capture that particular look your child makes that gets you swooning...

it can be more than a little pressure-inducing to only share the most spectacular photos of your own.

The problem is, sometimes there are photos that make me feel something, that have captured moments I can experience again and again just by looking at a picture that I really want to share on this space because this is our family's story - lots of imperfect moments creating one great life.  

Not a display of my best work (that's what my website is for), but of what's the best (and sometimes the not-so-great, because life isn't always great or even good if we are really honest) of us.

The other day Henry woke up from a nap feeling a little out-of-sorts (a trend this week...I think he's teething again after a many month hiatus), and we woke up slowly, sitting on my bed, quietly talking until he started getting silly.  Before I know it, we're both on our backs, he's squealing away from being tickled, and in no short of a few minutes, his finger ends up my nose, my hair is pulled and one of his drool drips falls into my mouth.

We both laughed the best belly laughs until we had to stop to catch our breaths.

And I got these.  Nowhere near technically correct, blurry, blown-out imperfectly perfect shots.

They're some of my most recent favorites.