A Unique Challenge

In January, my friend Becky at The Blue Hutch contacted me about possibly doing some special photography for her. She was envisioning a seventh birthday gift for her oldest daughter {affectionately known online as Little}... she wanted some photos to hang on Little's bedroom wall that she would love.


Little is a precious and special young lady. Her very life... her living, breathing, running, playing, singing, dancing, reading, active life... is a beautiful testimony of God's mercy and grace. Little was born without a portion of her brain. Despite facing some learning and developmental challenges she is growing and shining brightly, glorifying her Creator God.


Little's main interest is computers... she loves them and excels in using them. Becky had a vision and she believed I had the skills to capture her vision with the camera. She wrote, "Little's birthday is next month and I would love to add some artwork to her walls. Her “thang” is computers but it is hard to find pictures of computers that are also feminine... I was wondering if you might take on the project."


I was honored and excited... what a unique challenge! When I told the professor about the opportunity he said, "Feminine photos of a computer? Good luck!" With some input from Becky I was pretty sure I could do it. Becky's confidence in my ability was a huge blessing and encouragement.


I asked Becky about color preferences and she wrote, "Little's room is done in pinks, oranges, and yellows. I am almost finished with a quilt for her bed in these three colors. She loves pink and orange; bright happy colors. You do such pretty things with flowers so I don’t know if there is any way to use them in one or two shots."


Thanks to email and online photo sharing we were able to work together on this project despite being miles apart. Becky offered so much guidance and feedback that was tremendously helpful to me in the process of capturing her vision. This was such an iterative process... I would do a photo shoot, upload the photos, get feedback from Becky, and proceed once more with a better idea of what she wanted. We worked together over several weeks to create photos that were exactly what she had in mind.


Dozens of photos later, when it was all said and done, when I had nearly reached my deadline, these are the images that Becky chose for Little's room. With each one cropped to a square, she plans to hang them in square on the wall over a bookshelf.


Most important of all, the birthday girl loves them! Becky recently shared with me, "When I pulled them out for Little she touched the one of the computer and daisy and said softly, "They are so beautiful." It was so precious." Reading those sweet words put a smile on my face for the rest of the day!