If I were to describe myself in three words, I would choose sentimental, obsessive and appreciative. I know. Sounds like someone you want to call your girlfriend, right? I’d much rather say I’m outgoing, stylish and loud. In seventh grade, I knew what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a singer and a performer. I wanted to be famous. I wanted to be Taylor Swift, who was seven at the time, but still.
I sang all through high school and not well. While I scratched my way through choir, I slowly began to melt down my dreams of fame on the stage. Let’s just let Taylor Swift be Taylor Swift because she’s so much better at it than me.
I am sentimental. I save movie tickets and HAVE to celebrate Birthdays ON the DAY otherwise waiting for the weekend won’t be the same. I blog and write everything down because what if I forget something that made me happy? Then my fantastic memory grabs what I fail to write down. I want to remember my son as a newborn, as 1-year-old, as a 3-year-old, as a 5-year-three-month-six-day-and-29-minute-year-old. I want to remember all the things he’s done that have melted my heart. Things like how he used to hold his sippy cup under his arm while he crawled across the living room. Things like saying “I love you, mama” in a drowsy voice right before drifting off to sleep. This is what I live for.
I am obsessive and not in the good way. Once I get a project in my head, I can’t stop with it. It has to be perfect, it has to be right, it has to be just as how I imagined. Once I hear an album that I love, I can’t stop listening to it until I can sing along to every song. My obsessiveness gets the better of me with DIY projects, website design and re-design, reading, and cleaning. Yes, Pinterest is my own personal vortex of terror and FUN!
I am appreciative. I appreciate jeans that fit, cloudy days and easily finding just what I was looking for. I appreciate family and love. I appreciate what it’s like to have 
a broken heart. What it’s like to feel hopeful and inspired again. What it’s like to bring yourself back to who you are and find peace and beauty in all the things you are and all the things you’re not. I appreciate the little things like not having to be in a hurry or spending a day doing nothing with someone you love. I appreciate how a song can make you feel alive and breathless or make you burst out into a hot mess of tears. I appreciate the importance of memories and photographs and passing on a legacy. To show your family down the line “Look at all this love and complete joy.”
When I was eleven, we moved from California to Arizona. From a house to an apartment. Half of our belongings went into storage until we were able to find a more spacious and permanent home. About six months later, our storage was broken into and everything was gone, including all of our family photos. My mother posted signs for a reward for the photos, stating that they could keep everything else, she would pay for the photos and no charges would be pressed. She just wanted the baby photos of me and my brother back. This is when photos became so important to me. It is important to me for you to have photos of you as a newly engaged couple, on your wedding day, and of your family. Even now, when I take a photo of a mother and daughter, I think, “I wish I had a shot like this of me and my mom.” While photos are important to you, they’re also so important to the 20 year old version of your two year old. I can’t remember anything that was lost at that time. I don’t miss anything, except our family photos. About two years ago, my grandmother sent me a little album that she found with about 20 photos from my childhood. While my mom wasn’t in any of them (she likely was taking them), I now have a handful of images of me and my brother as children. It was better than anything anyone could have bought at a store.
The three things that I am most are all passionate things. I love the passion that lives in me and I love that I am able to translate it into a photograph. My goal here is to give you something. If it’s artful images to pass down to future family members or guidance on carving out a path on your own creative journey, I want to give you what I can. I appreciate you being here and would love to hear from you about anything and everything.
denise karis
