This week my time is filled as it typically is - driving through the UP and Northern WI to go and photograph school pictures. Yes, school pictures...the ones we ALL dreaded (after a certain age anyway). But there is one thing different this week than others. This week, my other half is out in the woods, the cold, sitting in a small tent like shelter on a small stool - all in hopes that he will encounter a prize Buck and further prove his "man of the house" status by bringing home the "bacon" (regardless the fact that we still have a freezer full of venison that a family of two simply cannot go through fast enough). All lady sarcasm and joking aside, it pleases me to see him so excited, so prepared, so...manly :)
So when my dark Tuesday morning drive finally woke the sun to a fiery hunter orange sunrise, I could not help but smile to myself. Smile, and realize that even the morning sky was excited for opening day and welcoming hunters out in the woods in the best way it knew how. And once the sun awoke and I could see other travelers on the road, it made me smile even more to realize most of the other 6 a.m. morning traffic was 4x4 trucks loaded with four-wheelers complete with gunboots, turning off of the hwy onto tiny little dirt roads that lead no where but into the woods. Now, I'm not a hunter, and it does not please me to know that beautiful creatures all over the UP are going to be "taken down" during their breakfast - I stand firm behind my saying "the only animal I will shoot will be with a 300 mm Nikkor lens", and I further do not enjoy seeing the evidence of such take downs all over town frozen and stiff in truckbeds (or worse, strapped to the top of the cab) in the parking lots of innocent places like the grocery store. BUT, what made me smile was knowing that somewhere out there, my favorite person in the entire world was too heading out to embark on for what he has been prepping so intently, and I thanked the sky for giving him such a beautiful welcome. I wished him silent luck, and then I even more silently wished for the deer to run...run fast.
The little smiles for the day, however, did not end for me after my drive was over. School photography, as one could assume, is a love/hate relationship. Some days, the kids are adorable, and well behaved, and did I say adorable? But other days, they are infuriating, badly behaved, and, well...did I mention infuriating? The particular school(s) I was headed to on this particular morning is on my top 5 list of badly behaved and difficult schools. In addition to this, it a school where I cannot park near where I will be set up to unload my equipment (and there's plenty, three trips worth). So generally, by the time I am finished photographing and needing to load up to head out, I am even LESS thrilled about having to lug all of my stuff back out to where my car is parked. But something for me went differently this day. As I was hauling all of my gear out several sets of doors, a nice gentleman teacher held a door open for me, assessed the situation, and returned seconds later with two kiddos to "help". At the very same moment, two more boys came running out yelling that they wanted to help, and then two more...ultimately until there was too many little helpers for the number of things to carry (some settled on doubling up to carry one bag). Now it is a very small thing, but this happening utterly and completely MADE my day, and made me smile (even now) thinking about how adorable my slew of little helpers were. Thank you to the mothers out there who are still making it a point to raise little gentlemen!
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| There were about three more that didn't make the picture because I took it quickly over my shoulder. Adorable. |
