I read Spanki’s blog post several months ago, I was waiting for the perfect time to share. But I felt the longer I wanted the more people were putting off getting their portraits done. There is no better time than the present!

Spanki Mills is a professional photographer from Texas. She has 4 beautiful children, including a set of twin boys! Check out her website Spanki Mills Photography and her blog Spanki Mills Blog

“The other day my husband and I started talking and the conversation lead to what I call my “picture wall”  and the one image of all 4 of our children on walking and holding hands. He said to me, and remember this is coming form the mouth a one VERY CHEAP man who was not raised where pictures were important, “that picture is priceless to me, had you come home the day it was taken and told me you wanted to spend $500 on that print I would have had a hard time, but now, it is one of my most treasured images of my children. It is a time of their lives that as parents we were so busy parenting to to really grasp that age. It is a time we will never get back, I can stare at this picture for hours and take in the details of how Paysli’s shoes are on the wrong feet, how the boys hands were still “baby hands” how they had missing teeth, everything about it I love”… So that one conversation got me thinking.

The  phone rang at 1am. I knew what the call was about, I already knew what I was about to be told, but it hearing it made it real. It was the phone call from a sibling, telling me my cancer stricken father had taken his last breath. I gently got out of bed, not to wake anyone, went to my office and dug out of the drawer the last picture we had taken together and just held it and sobbed. That was all I had left, the pictures we had taken. Still to this day, five years later, when we tell stories of my father to my children, we get out the pictures and re-live that moment in our lives that was taken away all to soon.

I was once (a looong time ago) 100lbs and got pregnant with TWINS! I have only one snapshot that I set my camera on the timer and took of myself. At the time I felt fat, and ugly. We look back and I am so disappointed with myself for not making it a priority to have maternity pictures taken, when would my body EVER look like that again. At the time I was more shamed but now, older, I am proud to show off what my tiny little frame  held. I grew two VERY healthy  full weight (5.1lb and 5.12lb) babies in my stomach! ROCK STAR! And still to this day think I should tattoo their names on each of the stretch marks I have on my stomach!

Years later I was in a doctors office being told one of my boys had a bone disease, and the only way to “cure” it was to amputate his leg. The first thing I did when we got home, set an appt. for a second opinion, and the second call was to a photographer so we could have family pictures of all of us with shorts on and barefoot so one day we could show our son what his real leg looked like. He is in medical history books for being the ONLY recordable child to NOT lose his leg with this disease, which I 100% credit GOD our father for… but, pictures were important!

Like my husband said, the cost would have been hard to swallow for the prints, but  years later, the images are priceless! We as Americans have gotten so used to spending money on ridiculous things! I know someone who spent $1,500.00 on a purse, but thinks money on pictures is silly. That is their own opinion, but I highly doubt that the purse will give her the same feeling an image of her precious children will years from now. Are your grand-babies going to gather in a room and ooh and ahh over a purse, or clothing, or red soled shoes, or are they going to laugh and reminisce over the images you had hanging on the wall of their mother in braces. Or the prom she went to with their father for the first time….

I am not saying this to get anyone to hire me. I just want to make you aware of how important images are and how one day they all become a treasure! So make sure when you hire a professional, they can give you what you want, something to cherish for years to come. If you do hire a professional, make sure to save up it is an investment, get the images you want and hang them proudly on your walls. If you chose to take the images yourself, take the time to learn your camera, and make sure to get it out and USE it!  We all too often are filled with regret. Take it from me, we will never get these moments in time back.”

Thanks so much Spanki for sharing your story!