A Sense Of Place

I took this photo of Simon and Anna (and Lily in her bed) on Tuesday night.

It was about 7pm and Anna had just taken a bath. We put her PJ's on and she kept saying "no night night" so I decided she could stay up a bit longer - long enough to at least go downstairs and say goodnight to Simon.

When we reached the bottom of the stairs she ventured into the living room. I headed towards the kitchen to clean up a few more dishes from dinner.

A few minutes later I looked into the living room and saw that she had pulled her little bench over to the basket of books and was happily perusing her collection. At first I thought it was all part of a "no night-night" stall tactic. It probably was a little of that - but she was quiet and content and just going through her books and that's definitely a really good way to get me to let you stay up longer around here. She was enjoying it and I was feeling flexible.

It wasn't long before Simon joined in and starting looking through the books too.

At that point I raced upstairs to grab my camera, saying a little prayer that they would both be in the same place when I came back down. As you can see, that little prayer must have worked.

As I looked at the photo tonight I was reminded again how I like to take photos that include the surroundings (vs. just a close-up of a face). There's something about the environment and a sense of place that adds so much to the photo - the fireplace cover, a portion of the ottoman, the books all over the floor, the tv, the reflections of the rest of the room in the glass doors, etc. All pieces of our everyday life.

In the future I know I'll love seeing all the different pieces of this photo just like I love seeing photos from when I was a kid that included rooms from our house (and carpet, and furniture, and dishes, etc).

Next time you grab your camera consider including more of your everyday surroundings along with the people you love.