Hooters Mud Volleyball

A couple summers ago, my sister in law asked me to take pictures during the Mud Volley Tournament they have each year in our area.  The match I photographed was against the ladies at the Tilted Kilt.  It was an awesome game to watch.  While these girls essentially make money off of their looks, they had no problems getting dirty and trying their hardest to represent their store.  

I have hundreds of pictures from this match, which was not an easy feat, as I had to be shin deep in mud to not have people blocking my view.  Here are some of my favorites:

Sometimes, it's disappointing when you don't get the clearest photo, but you just have to take away the story it tells and learn from your mistakes, and know that you can't control everything.

A Bride

Here is the gorgeous bride from the wedding my husband and I attended a couple months ago.  When we married, she was 9, and that was the first time I met her (and most of my husband's family.)  At the time, we were living about 3 hours away from them and it was a guessing game each Thanksgiving trying to figure out which cousin was which.  In my defense, he has a lot of cousins.  They hit their growth spurts sporadically like most and trying to keep them straight by height or how old they looked just didn't work.

She is the youngest, and it has been amazing to see the woman she has become.  I remember moments from her teen years, like wanting to be old enough to try out for American Idol and that I can't even recall seeing her at her graduation open house (those are really for your parents anyway.)

Today, she's a woman who is open and fun, enjoys the bingo hall, and can connect with my son in a way that should probably make me feel incompetent, but rather makes me so happy to see him engage with someone who really gets him.

It's not always easy to find someone who is as beautiful on the inside as they are on the outside, but she definitely makes the list.  

The Looks I Get

This man is my husband.  This is one of the looks I get when I'm doing something that he really wishes I wouldn't, but knows I'm going to do it anyway.   90% of the time, I will do it anyway.  Okay, maybe it's more like 99%.

Many times he's forced to be the subject of photographs when he really doesn't want to be, but he plays along, knowing that it's what I want and in the end, most of the photos will stay on my computer and away from the internet. I think sometimes he's bothered more by the pictures he didn't know I was taking

because he's alone in those.  In the first photo you can only see him, but he was a having a conversation, albeit a non-verbal one, with me.  In this one, he was on his own, exposed and unaware.  As much as I like doing things with my husband, sometimes I still want to be an observer.

Aw crap, what am I doing?

I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I am doing.  Sadly, I can report nothing.  I have no idea what to do with myself.  While trying to put a portfolio online, I just became so disappointed in the process.  Filing through over 15,000 photos is exhausting, especially with a computer who seems to have more of a personality than I do.

I could say for the moment, I've given up on the idea of creating a website for the sole purpose of doling out a url for those who ask to see my portfolio.  I'm of the variety who loves to touch a photograph, and seeing them online just doesn't make me feel quite the same.

There's also the concern of what to choose.  I know what I like, I know what I want, but do I dare let others take a look with the possibility that they will see nothing?  Yes, but boy does the idea suck.

Which all culminates to this point.  Screw the organization of a portfolio for now.  I love photographs.  All I want to do is share them and have them shared with me (which my friends can testify to my constant nagging for photos) because they all tell a story.  Even if the story is, "I screwed this one up."

The picture above isn't even mine, while editing a relative's recent wedding photos, I found this gem that my husband took of his cousin.  I thought it was a fabulous way to express how I feel about starting this blog and making myself stick to it.  No one can see all the photos I surround my desk and fill my hard drive with, so here I am, putting them out there in the hopes that someone will want to share these visual stories with me and show their own.

 The only value anything has, is what we give it.