arrow through my heart

with my arrows and hearts, this might have been a good valentine's day post if it was meant to be. but alas, it was not. it couldn't be, because valentine's day was over a month ago. and today is nothing more than the first day of spring... and my sister's birthday, too!! not that either of those things are anything to brush off as meaningless, 'cause they're huge!!

but lest i further digress, the point...

i can't tell you how many times since i've lived in this new house {almost three months now} that i have knelt down on my knees in our hallway to get shots like these of my sweet boy sitting in front of his book case {remember?... the one that holds his 400 books?}... reading, surrounded by a pile of recently "checked-out" books... content and happy as a clam... lost in a world of letters, words and illustrations.

i've said it before and will likely say it again... how tickled i am that he loves books. and that is the reason i've sat several times all incognito-like {a fly on the wall in the hall} to watch him and shoot him in the moment as he read. each time it looked a little different. sometimes that book case was open {which i loved, 'cause you could see all the books}. sometimes he was facing the door. 

but always, he sat unaware of my presence. and he focused like a laser beam. not even distracted by the sound of my shutter when i clicked {which is not like him!... he always comes a-runnin' when he hears that thing!}.

always a minute or two of me snapping my camera, bookended by my gazing admiration and a deep gratitude for was seeing.

never in all those times, though, did i feel like my photos were post-worthy. the moment was worthy. but i did not do a very good job of capturing the mood. or they came out all wrong, technically speaking. or they came off looking like i was trying too hard, and i never want to try too hard when it comes to taking pictures... especially pictures like these.

but this day was different. call it luck maybe? serendipity? i walked out of my office to check on him. {always always check on them when they're quietest, right?} i looked down the hall to my right to find him there. bathed in a single stream of light while all the room around him was dark. it was too good to be true. angelic. magical. precious. i nearly gasped. and within a split second, i thought "oh, quick. where's my camera?!!!" luckily, it was a mere two steps away.

anyone who tries to get pics of their {or anyone else's} toddler knows that you snap as quiclkly as you can before the moment flees, because kids that age have curious minds that have to fit four hundred and thirty-two things into the span of forty-five seconds and won't typically stay focused on just one for more than the time it takes to set your camera up the right way.

so i held my breath and quickly adjusted my exposure to make sure the shot didn't come out completely dark. click. look. darn! i over-exposed on my first try... thus the reason isaac's sunlit frame is washed out in the first shot. {still LOVE that shot, though... especially the way he is blurry in it.}

here is the internal conversation that was going on between me, myself and i during the process from that point on...

"yikes. oh, please don't move. please don't turn around and come toward me. please let me capture this moment before it goes. please, please, please. 

try again. 1/1600, f1.4, ISO800. there we go. that's better. got it! quick!... he's moving! take another one!! 

oh, wait. he's just shifting to a different book. phew! it's all good. okay. one more. 

oh, shoot! sd card is full! quick, delete something off the card that you've already uploaded and don't need. okay. this can go. please don't discover i'm here, isaac. okay. done. quick! shoot!

there, done! i hope i got what i wanted. you just never know until you look on the big screen."

hahaha. has that ever been you? if so, that all sounds familiar enough that i don't need to explain the turmoil of it all! taking pictures should not be that stressful! *wink*

seriously, though... i honestly didn't know if i'd capture the mood that was there. but then i got them up on the screen... and i was so in love and relieved to find something precious and priceless to me.

it wasn't just about the fact that i love these moments of his... with his books. this was not the first time i found him there. and it won't be the last.

and it wasn't only about the way the light looked and how it was coming in.

it was more. it was about what that light represented.

you see, after renting and living on the second floor of an old house {that had very little natural light... essentially none of the direct, streaming kind like we get now} for eight years, i found myself craving light... especially as a photographer. i'd see the work of other photographers... specifically, the work of dear photog friends i admire, even just today... and i would be so smitten with the way the light came into their rooms and the way they could photograph it. i honestly never once saw this kind of presence of light in our last place, so i never got to take a photo like these.

that's why, when i found it there today, my heart sort of melted. i thought "finally... this small, but significant dream of mine came true. a home with ample light."

i love light. i love photography. i love that little boy. and i love what that shed light revealed this day.

and i know these aren't "perfect", technically flawless photos. but they are the most perfect photos i've taken in a while if they've captured so precisely what is happening around here in our truly real day-to-day lives. and for that, they make my heart grin big. 

sort of the way he does.