Lost Tooth

I don't think it is much of a stretch to say that most people use their cameras to document things that happen to them, or the people in their lives.  It could be a birthday party, T-ball games, the evidence of pet destruction, or even just their lunch.  Sometimes, it seems, the pictures don't even matter--  people just feel they need to document the moment!  For example-- next time you are at a wedding put down your camera/camera phone and look at what everyone else is doing.

I never really got into doing too much of this.  On one hand, I find it a little frustrating now that I don't have pictures from certain things.  But, for the most part this doesn't bother me too much.  I have pretty vivid recollections of the things I really really care about-- even if I don't have a picture.  I don't like making these pictures, but I do like looking through other people's snapshots.  I don't know why I never really made them.

I've even tried making snapshots more recently -- I hated doing it. When I looked at the pictures later I felt somewhat "meh" about them.  I think the reason is when I am really making pictures, when its either my sole responsibility, or the whole purpose for me at that moment is to make a picture-- that is all I concentrate on, its where my awareness is.  It is all I can recall from the moment. In other words, I miss what is going on!  If I don't have that level of focus for picture making, and am paying more attention to the event itself, the pictures I may make don't add anymore to it for me.  They take away, because I don't like them later.

Tobias recently lost a tooth.  This was one of the front ones.  I think this ranks up there in terms of child-hood milestones.  I think most of us would reach for a camera to document that.  Since I knew a simple cell-phone snap, or a quick grab with something else would just irritate me when I looked at them -- we made these instead.

The black eye is from our resident fifth-grade make-up artist ( see the sparkles! ), and a little help from Photoshop ( little burn, little color ).

Anyway, I'll enjoy seeing these later-- and it serves the purpose of documenting the gap tooth too.