Story Behind the Picture: Candy Heart

Sometimes a photograph really doesn't have a dramatic story. Sometimes a photograph is just a little holiday greeting. Sometimes you have to put the myraid of candy canes that have over-run your house to good use.

I wish you all a day of simplicity, of sweetness, and - most of all - love.

Story Behind the Picture: Love Letters

My grandmothers spent years writing letters to my grandfathers as they fought battles on foreign soil. Their relationships survived on paper alone as they sent cryptic messages across the oceans to relay their locations and information: they developed codes to freely communicate without fear of letters being intercepted and censored. They sent photographs to one another, chronicling children's missed birthdays, holidays, and life lived by canteen and rifle. When my father's father was rescued by the French Resistance, his first duty was to write to my grandmother from his hiding place deep in the tunnels under the city. "I am safe..."

Letters held my family together, as they would a generation later when my parents were again separated by war. I treasure the letters left to me, creased and yellowed, carefully guarded in pockets, held close to hearts, read and re-read by dim lantern and firelight. Their written words alone bridged the endless miles and brought them home again.

Story Behind the Picture: An Ideal Day

I know, it's December: I really shouldn't be posting about sunglasses and bathing suits, especially since my hands have yet to thaw out from my morning walk to the bus stop with the boys.

I thought, however, on this windy and frigid morning, we could all use a little sunny warmth. I shot this still life in August, during a gorgeous week at the beach. The idea for it stemmed from a dinner-table discussion my husband had introduced the night before: "what would be your perfect day?" I listened as the boys described running, playing, and general adventuring. I listened as Marty described similarly high-energy activities. I listened as all three invented a 24-hour day completely packed with a weeks' worth of fun.

When it was my turn to share, I just smiled: this picture was already forming in my head. All I need is a cold drink, a good book, and a warm beach. That, my friends, is the most ideal day I can imagine.

Story Behind the Pictures: The Green Path Series

I saw these images in my head long before I took them. It took me a while to find the right spot because a city like Philadelphia doesn't really offer any unobstructed, building-free views with rolling green paths leading on to nowhere. But find it I did - on my way back from collecting work from an exhibit in Phoenixville, I drove through Valley Forge and nearly went off the side of the road when I saw this view.

Did I mention the husband and kids were along for the ride?

Marty: "What are you doing?"
Me: "Pulling over! I have my camera with me! Look, actual TREES!!"
Marty: "Wow, and grass without parking garages on it too...who knew?"
Me: "I have just one favor - please, please keep the boys occupied for a bit until I get the shots I want, then you can let the run free."
Marty: "Sure hon, no problem!"

I started walking down the path, camera raised to my eye, when I saw a set of fingers reach for the lens.

Me: "Hello, Daniel."
Dan: "Hi Mom! You can take a picture of me now!"
Lucas: "Me too! Me too!" *as he runs into the back of my legs, not wanting to miss anything*

Marty: "Boys, come over here - Mommy has work to do!"
Me: "Thanks ever so much, darling..."

Again, I scan the horizon for interesting shapes and am about to set off once more, when I hear Danny scream.

Me: "What's going on?"
Dan: "I stepped in a PUDDLE and my shoe is WET!"

Marty, realizing I might be a little annoyed, gestures that he's got the situation under control.

Marty: "I've got it, sweetie! Just go do your thing, don't worry about us!
Lucas: "Ow, Danny PUSHED me!"
Dan: "Nu-uh, I did NOT push you. I SHOVED you. There's a difference."

At this point, I gave up. The boys came galloping down the hill behind me, thrilled to be let loose in a sea of rolling amber and green. After about thirty minutes, they all voluntarily headed back up to the car, their shoes covered in mud and their hair full of downy seedlings from the cotton plants they discovered along the path. It occurred to me then that exhausting the children first was probably a better plan than holding them captive.

I grabbed a few moments of solitude and captured these three images as their voices faded and floated away by the fall breeze. By the time I reached the car, they were all buckled in to their seats, waiting patiently for me, tired smiles on their rosy faces.

Story Behind the Picture: B is for Ballet

A few months ago, a reader asked about my dance background in reference to another post, specifically why I would have started taking point classes at the age of 21. I've decided to write this post for Thanksgiving. When you read it, you will understand.

College. That one word brings back a swirl of emotions, not the least of which is nostalgia for a time in my life when I was simultaneously a genius and an idiot (for those of you who knew me then, I appreciate your silence regarding that latter part). It was my time to discover what I was good at (analyzing, writing, getting by on very little sleep) and what I was not good at (all things math, making it to 8 a.m. classes, staying awake in 8 a.m. classes). I was thrilled to find that I could take a ballet class to satisfy some of my credit requirements. I hadn't danced in years, having long since found horses more appealing than barre work, but I didn't let this deter me. I was nervous my first day, not sure what to expect of a college dance professor (Serious? Tall? French accent?). Susan was none of the three. She was a petite blonde pixie with a wicked sense of humor and an uncanny ability to not laugh at her students, no matter how horrible their performance. I saw her eyes laugh, but her face never broke form (I ought to know - most of that laughter was definitely directed at me). Still, I loved dancing in Susan's class. She knew I couldn't pick up choreography at all, and she mercifully let me hide in the back for four straight years. That fourth year, however, something changed about her. Her once thick blonde hair looked thinner, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She started wearing a sweater tied around her waist, and only one time did I glimpse the chemotherapy pouch that lurked underneath. She never missed a class.

The winter of my senior year, I decided I wanted to try a pointe class. Susan didn't teach pointe classes at the college, but she did have a Friday night class with the local dance company. For ten year-olds. I asked her permission, and I was in.

I stopped going out on Friday nights, and instead spent hours sweating and bleeding through my new shiny satin shoes. If anyone has any questions about how brutal pointe work is on the feet, let me assure you it's much like having your toes caught in a bear trap, if not worse. On full pointe, I was at least a foot taller than all the willowy little girls in that class, but again, Susan never laughed. Smiled, but not laughed. She taught me it was perfectly acceptable to be the ostrich in a room full of little swans.

I went to her house shortly before my graduation when she kindly agreed to sit for a portrait with her daughters for a final exam I was completing. I met her husband, played with her dogs, fell in love with her two little pixie blonde girls who climbed all over their mother and gave me some of the most breathtaking images I've ever shot. I aced the final.

Susan died of breast cancer two years after I graduated. She left behind two beautiful little girls and a world that was a little less sunny without her. I'm thankful every day for her influence. She was funny, but never laughed at us. She was beautiful, but never made us feel awkward in her presence. She was fighting a battle, but she never let it harden her. Thank you Susan, for showing me that grace and beauty are not reflected in a mirror, but in my actions.

Story Behind the Picture: Philadephia Skyline

This is the view from the boathouses along the river: the Art Museum, City Hall, and all the other beautiful buildings that form the unmistakable Philadelphia skyline. This is where we met almost ten years ago. There were no rose petals, shooting stars, or serenades by strolling violin players. The Cliff's Notes version? I hit him with my boat. In the head.

He was standing in the back of the boathouse, looking for something, and I walked in with my 26 foot single balanced on my head. My excuse, to this day, is that my eyes had yet to adjust from the bright sunlight.

He was not necessarily my type. I tended to like the kind of man that was "emotionally unavailable" (yes, that is an actual quote by an actual ex-boyfriend. Twenty dollars to the person who can tell me what on earth that really means). I fell for the arrogant ones who were, oddly, threatened by my own confidence. I seemed to like the ones that were less than honest and hid things about their past from me.

Yet there he was: unassuming, emotionally available, and completely honest. And, of course, grimacing and holding his head which I had just rammed with the bow of my boat. He likes to say he didn't regain full consciousness until we were at the altar. This is usually the point where I hit him again.

For ten years I have been grateful for the perfect timing of that one morning row. I'd like to think that even when I'm 90, I'll still remember the moment I realized I'd finally met the right one.

Story Behind the Pictures: Spoon, Knife, and Fork

Memories. Memories come in the strangest of forms. I never met my great-grandmother, but her four daughters were an integral part of my daily life. They shaped my world, spoiled me, taught me, loved me. Of all the things they collected and treasured, the drawers full of their mother's tarnished silverware is the most beautiful. Of all the things they sold in order to keep food on the table and clothes on their children, they always protected the silverware. I refuse to polish away the patina and fingerprints, the years of use that have darkened the monogrammed "R" that adorns the graceful handles. I never met my great-grandmother, but when I look at these pieces of silver, I have memories of her Christmas dinners and Sunday lunches. I never met my great-grandmother, but her four daughters taught me everything I needed to know: love deeply, laugh loudly, and life is too short not to use the good silverware.