At work, I work in childcare, we are required to take a minimum of 3 photos per day of the children in our care. For several of the teachers this seems an impossible task along with all their other duties. Many excuses I hear at our staff meetings include: I'm so busy I just forget. There isn't always a planned activity that is easy to photography. Or my favorite- the children won't let me!
I've had personal talks with a couple of these people to try and explain how important our photos throughout the day are to the parents. One teacher told me "It's easy for you. You're a photographer and you just have the babies." To that my reply was "No, it's not always easy for me and you don't have to be a photographer. (at least not with our app or Ipad) You just have to put yourself in the parents' place. Wouldn't you want to know what your child is doing, if they're having fun, if they're playing with friends? It doesn't always have to be a planned activity, take as candid picture occasionally. You know why? One day pictures are all you have. Because one day you will take a final photo. And that's not a good thing."
What is a Final Photo? For anyone who has lost someone you love, you know what a final photo is. I'm sure you can even look through your pictures and find it.
A final photo is the very last picture you will ever take of your loved one. For me, having lost my bonus daughter, I know the very last photos I ever took of her. They were on her last Christmas. Christmas Day 2016. After March 28, 2017 there were no more chances. No "next time we're together." The only photos I get of her now are that granite stone with her name on it!
My brothers always hated me having my camera out at family gatherings and celebrations. "Don't take my picture!" "Why are you taking my picture?" All their complaining stopped after one of my brothers lost his wife. I became the one who got called and asked it I had any pictures of his wife because he didn't have many. And of course I did.
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Looking through to find those photos for him to use brought tears to my eyes. Not just because she was gone, but because it had been 5 years since I had actually gotten photos of her or her and my brother!!! This is not OK!
Pictures are memories of a moment, but they are also so much more. When you look at a picture you remember all the feelings, the sounds, the story behind it. You remember every sense of what was going on and for a moment your person is with you again. You are back in that place, that moment. You can hear their voice, smell and feel them. For a moment a photo can take away grief, pain and loneliness.
Having a final photo? That one is the most precious photo ever! That photo is the LAST! It's the final page in a chapter of a living, breathing person who has now become a memory.
So why are those pictures we teachers take at the childcare center so important? Because parents don't normally take a picture of their child every single day of their life. Our photos are an archive of each year of their growing. They show them learning, playing, laughing smiling, and loving being a child. They show daily changes and they could, unfortunately be a Final Photo.
I personally do not want to rob a parent of that photo. There are so many what ifs in life. What if you get in a fatal accident on the way home? What if it is your time to die? And in my case I work with infants under 1, what if they have SIDS? Could that picture I took of them laughing at the baby in the mirror be their Final Photo?
Be thankful if you have never taken one yet. But personally, I've taken too many in my life. So, yes that is how I think.
As a final bit on my soapbox - Parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents: GET IN THE PICTURE TOO!!
One day you'll be the one they have a Final Photo of. Don't let it be 5, 10 or 20 years old.
