All the cliches are true. This year flew by. She’s growing up too fast.

If you’re new here, I’m an Asheville Newborn and Wedding photographer… (Not a videographer. Most of these clips were shot with an iphone 5C- and no they don’t make those anymore) As with most photographers, my love for documenting and preserving my own memories has spilled over into serving other people be documenting and preserving theirs. But I still love more than anything capturing my own memories.

In one of my favorite books, Gilead, the protagonist writes to his son, “I wish I could leave you certain of the images in my mind, because they are so beautiful that I hate to think they will be extinguished when I am. Well, but again, this life has its own mortal loveliness. And memory is not strictly mortal in its nature, either. It is a strange thing after all to be able to return to a moment when it can hardly be said to have any reality at all, even in its passing. A moment is such a slight thing. I mean. That its abiding is a most gracious reprieve.”

This is the best part of photography! Not only do we enjoy the “gracious reprieve” of a moment abiding in memory, but we can share these beautiful images in our minds. They don’t have to be extinguished. I get to share with you the beauty of watching my little girl grow up in a year. And one day, she’ll get to see this video and know a little bit about this part of her life that she’ll have no memory of. And maybe one day her kids will see it. Wouldn’t that be cool?