So… all the visual work I’ve been putting in recently caught up with me last week. On Monday, I noticed that my eyes were flashing around – everything was jumpy. By Friday, I couldn’t look to my right without feeling cross-eyed. I had to close one eye to see anything when I’d turn my head.

Since I’ve had trouble with my eyes in the past, we decided we had better look into it, so we hit up an eye doctor while we were in Virginia over the weekend. It turned out that my right eye has an astigmatism, and my left eye has been working overtime to make up the difference. Which means that between the computer, the reading, the shooting, and the TV (most of my regular activities), I’d pretty much knocked my eyes out.

Let me tell you. If you’re a photographer, losing your eyesight is NOT COOL.

Just wanted to clarify that. In case you hadn’t thought of it. *grin*

Of course, nothing was open over the weekend to pick up my prescription, and I couldn’t even drive on Monday (!), but we finally picked the glasses up on Monday night. The improvement was instantaneous. My vision stopped jumping around, and my right eye quit straining, which made me feel a whole lot less woozy. (It was actually kind of funny before – my balance was so off, I was running into walls!)

My prescription is low enough that the camera adjuster (what the heck do they call that thing? a diopter?) makes up the difference on my viewfinder, so it shouldn’t affect my shooting just yet. I suppose if things get worse, I’ll have to look into contacts. Sigh. The price we pay to see the world – but you know, it’s amazing to live in a world where we can correct this stuff.

Now, I have to note here, Pete picked out the frames, and I think he did a darn good job, don’t you? I’m totally enjoying my new look (lol – um, no pun intended!), and it just seems fitting in the middle of all of this change to throw one more thing into the mix, doesn’t it?

i have heard it said that
a mother is born when a baby is born
but i think that mothers
are born every day after,

when baby first cries,
when she stays up
all that first long night,
when she watches first steps
and receives first flowers,
on first day of kindergarten
watching that first bike ride.

mothers are born

on their baby’s tenth birthday,
and then at 16,
when they drive that first car
and bring that first boy home,
when they graduate school.
when the ends are beginnings,
she’s just seeing her baby.

a mother is born every day while

she learns who her child is,
while she watches them grow,
half-wishing the time back,
half-praying they’ll see.

Shared today in response to L.L. Barkat’s Random Acts of Poetry prompt. If you want to join in, just leave your link on the TS Poetry Press Facebook page. You could get featured!

It was early, early morning, long before I should have been up. There was a mist outside, and a streetlight falling through it onto our neighbors’ blossoms, and though I was tired, I couldn’t resist the lure of the dark. It spoke deep to me of my story, spoke color to me that I’d covered in grays and blacks for months. I grabbed my tripod and braved the mosquitoes to paint this story of where I was at the moment, where I had been through the last two years of depression, uncovering unexpected beauty in the messiness of the dark.

A few months later, we had moved to a new house, with different light, and a fresh start. Outside my office window, there was a young live oak reaching for the sun after a winter that felt longer than I know it must have been. I kept noticing the way the light gave so much life to it, felt a strange and silly sort of kinship with it, and one day, I let go the observation, picked up my camera, and let the light in.

The play of dark and light tells the story of our lives, sunrise to sunset, night and day. Time began here, when light and the darkness separated and the evening and the morning were the first day. I don’t always notice the play of light around my life; I’m too busy thinking I can cheat time, but it passes, and sometimes, when the light is gone and I look quiet out in the dark, I remember who I am and where I’ve been, in memories of the light and the dark times in my life.

I love that Jesus said that He is the Light of the World, because light or dark, when I look for Him, I can always see again, no matter how I have forgotten to look for the light around me. He is my renewal, even in the dark times, which is, I think, the reason even my dark images are shot through with light.

“Undress your landscape,” Claire said. “Take two images, one representing a period of darkness in your life, one representing a period of renewal and light.”

Today is the last day to participate in Photoplay for a feature at The High Calling, and we would love to have you join us. All you need to do is take these two photos, and load them into the High Calling Focus Flickr Group. Then tag your images with ‘photoplay 14’ and ‘The High Calling’ so that we don’t miss your images for our feature!

Early in my photography journey, someone told me that I should remember to live in the world, instead of merely standing on the sidelines to observe it. As photographers, it is easy for us to claim the wallflower position, standing on the fringes of everything without engaging ourselves with it…

I’m at High Calling Focus today with some thoughts on photography and my faith that have really challenged me in the last few years months. Come over and join me, won’t you?

I feel almost as though I grew up with Leeann, in spite of the fact that I didn’t meet her until my second year of college. She is one of the few friends I’ve ever had with whom I got to make memories together – from one crazy late night tromping around DC in the freezing cold to stringing popcorn for our dorm Christmas tree and singing along with Christmas music together. We listened to each other’s heartbreaks and hopes, and she was practically the maid of honor at my wedding almost six years ago. Getting to shoot her wedding was a dream come true for me, because I’ve been seeing this girl’s heart beauty for years, her quiet wisdom and her incorrigible optimism.

I kept wondering what EXACTLY the male race (Can I say that? The male “race?”) was missing when they kept overlooking her, but after meeting Kent, I suspect that God must have been saving her for one perfect guy who would love her the way she’d love him. Their engagement session is one of my favoritest memories ever with Leeann, getting to see her in love and see the one who loves her, watching them play together and just be, in that comfortable way that speaks of time and hope and years to come. I love how their love carries it all, as sweet as first love, as strong as friendship, as deep as romantic love can go.

But you have to see – we had so much fun!

As you can see, they weren’t afraid to have a little fun together.

Or a little highly romantic drama…

I had shot Leeann’s ring before I actually remembered to look at it – they got engaged in January, and this was the first time I’d seen them, the day before their wedding, since Kent put that ring on her finger!

In this story, Cinderella lost her shoes before the dance, but I think dancing barefoot is ever so much more fun, don’t you?

The shot on the right, the shot on the right, the shot on the right. I love, LOVE the quiet, happy trust in her eyes…

We did their engagement shoot at Seaport Village in San Diego, after a delightful, intimate rehearsal dinner at Harbor House Restaurant. There were some wonderfully fun details for this shoot. Watch this:

Every once in a while, I ask my clients if they’re willing to pose a slightly-almost-scandalous shot, and this was just too funny to miss. They can always refuse, or even ask not to display the photos, but Kent and Leeann graciously gave me permission to show these off – will you get a look at the laugh on them!

This next favorite part of the shoot took us in from outside, and me without my flash! I did some fancy fiddling with my dials to pull these off in the natural light we had, but really, the moments belong completely to them. I think I dreamed once of falling in love on a merry-go-round; I think they got to live it!

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Maybe this is the point: to embrace the core sadness of life without toppling headlong into it, or assuming it will define your days.

- Caldwell

I have known for a while that I don’t want to live my life the victim, but having been surrounded by pain coming from every direction, I’ve felt as though I’ve been looking around rather wildly for something normal to hold so I can catch my breath and remember what it means to be alive. But being alive means that I feel pain, whether from a stubbed toe, a death, or a broken heart. Life, as we know it, does have a core sadness, and there are times that I deliberately shut my eyes to it and try to pretend it is not there.

I read something last week, though, that stopped the ignoring that has become habitual. Someone was sharing a story from her life, and the similarity of this post to many of her other posts – and to so many of my own – suddenly made me feel so heavy, weighted down, burdened. I thought, “there must be so much more to her than this,” and then, “there is so much more to me than this.”

I know the bad and the sad, but the life I am learning to live in the world is not about that, not as it once was. I quite toppled headlong into my pain (and how could I not, considering how much there was over such a short period of time?), and I assumed that it would shape and define the rest of my life. In the last year, I have learned that it does not define me, and in the last several months, I’ve been slowly climbing back up to stand, to be a person again, to grow, and to move forward with my life.

Most of my work is made of beauty I have found in the darkness. I think this may be why it is so compelling; it creates a picture of a world that doesn’t have to be defined by pain (rather like L.M. Montgomery’s writing, actually). While it is ever so important to acknowledge and to embrace the sorrow – I can’t gloss over it or glibly ignore it – I don’t want to choose to live there. It is a part of me – it always will be, and it drives me deeper into the real beauty around me – but it does not define me.

I’ve known for about a month that I will be making some major changes here at my blog, with the new direction my life has taken in the last year or so. I’m making the changes now, before I gain a larger following than I’ve already gained, and I know I’m going to take a hit in my readership again, but I’m going to make it as easy to follow as I can.

I have not been at peace spilling some of my more recent restless heart ramblings here at my blog, especially out of consideration for my clients. I am a pretty open person – there is really no question you can ask me that I won’t answer – and I don’t mind that my life is pretty much an open book, but this deep, passionate, artistic, questioning part of me that opens me up to God only attends my shoots behind my camera. I wouldn’t talk about these things to my clients to make them more comfortable, and I would probably leave it out in general conversation, unless I was asked.

But, as I am a venter by nature, and I do write to clear my head, and I do write for others because it helps to direct my thoughts, I do still need to have a place to put these posts. I also need a blog that will fit with and continue to communicate my brand, without all of the heavy stuff.

Some of you may remember that I conjoined my photography and writing blogs last year because I felt schizophrenic, keeping up with a photography blog, a writing blog, my photography twitter name, my writing twitter name – I was losing my mind. But I think I’ve come up with a way to be in two places at once and be myself in both places.

Once I complete my rebranding, I will be leaving this blog at kellylangnersauer.com/blog.

I am planning to begin a new blog at kellysauerblog.com. This blog will contain my photography posts, my fambly posts, my randomnity posts, my a bit about me posts, some God and me posts, and anything else I would bring up to anyone in general conversation. I might even drop poetry out once in a while, since I do classify myself (thanks to Maureen Doallas for the delightful description) as a poet-photographer.

At this blog, I will have a link to another new blog, arestlessheart.com, where I will keep most of my restless heart/faith writing. This blog will not be a part of my brand, but it will allow readers who want to know more to find out more that I don’t mind sharing. I will also have the freedom to post as little or as much as I like at this blog, where I will try to write daily at kellysauerblog.com.

My current blog address will redirect to kellysauerblog.com, where I will start blogging mostly from scratch, while most of my posts here will be transferred to arestlessheart.com.

I am still working with Making Brands Happen to finalize my visuals so I can complete my design, but once I have those, these two new blogs will officially launch, and I’ll have those giveaways I promised.

I think Tax Day must have been moved (at least in my town) just so the seniors could have a day specifically set for their proms. Instead of dying over taxes (which my darling, wonderful husband finished for us in February!), I got to rock out another fabulous session with Taylor and her boyfriend Will on April 15. We had an incredibly short amount of time to do these photos, which were back-to-back with a group session with another photographer – but all I can say is WOW. And I’m not going to keep talking, because I can really only leave you with one word before you see these (okay, it might actually be TWO words because it’s a hyphenated term, but whatever, this is me, and I intend to break what rules I can here): DROP-DEAD. Which also means I have to add GORGEOUS, because otherwise, you will think I’m heading for the ax-murdering type. Which I am most decidedly not.

Okay, so I crack myself up, but that has nothing to do with Taylor, Will, or their joint Gorgeosity. Here, have a look. Tell me what word comes to YOUR mind?

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P.S. Yes, my blog format has changed.

P.P.S. NO, this is not what my new visual brand is GOING to look like. So look, but don’t cheer yet. I literally could not take the nails-on-the-chalkboard feeling I was getting wearing that last skin, so I racked out a quick redesign (like 30-minutes worth) that included the logo up top. It is a stop-gap for my own sanity and a kinder photo presentation. I seriously cannot wait to change everything over, but we have to finish it all first! I just couldn’t put these photos up on my previous template.

P.P.P.S. (I know, I need to quit already!) We’re dashing out of town for my sister’s birthday party in VA tonight – another whirlwind trip, but what is living if it doesn’t kill us, anyway? ;-) I’ll be back on Monday, with a gorgeous engagement session for you!