Last week, Cara looked up from her breakfast at the vintage family photographs on the wall in the dining room. Most of the old black and white photos are from almost a century ago. But she did recognize the one faux vintage photograph on the wall of Chloe Jane in her baptismal gown. After pointing out that it was Chloe Jane, she turned to me and asked, “Where’s me?” To respond to her immediate concern, I distracted her with other photos of her in the house. Afterwards, however, I too wondered where her baptismal gown photograph was. I knew that I had taken a few shots of her wearing that very same gown Chloe Jane was wearing in the photograph. So I pulled out an older, filled-to-capacity external hard drive and began to search. I found the photograph I was looking for, but it was a RAW file that had never been processed. I loaded the file into Photoshop and created a faux vintage photograph of Cara to put up on the wall with the real vintage photos and the faux vintage Chloe Jane photo. The result is below:
Finding the RAW file of Cara in her christening gown got me wondering if there were other unprocessed shots sitting around collecting digital dust. Sure enough I found a ton of RAW files I never got around to processing. Fortunately, I make greater use of Lightroom than Photoshop now so I could process these forgotten snapshots in very little time. Back when these photos were taken, I didn’t have Lightroom and the processing time was so long and with other photographic moments intervening–I just never got the chance to go back and re-visit the photos. I’m glad I use Lightroom now because I’m less likely to get so far behind in processing that some photos get forgotten. Most of these are just snapshots but nonetheless they document events and time periods that are fleeting. They may not be art, but they’re still memories.
If you’re interested in seeing some never-before-seen photos of Chloe Jane and Cara in 2008 and 2009, then click on the galleries below:
(1) These photos are from Thanksgiving 2008 in Hendersonville. Apparently, I processed a couple but left the bulk of shots alone (unlike the galleries that follow, you will see one or two photos in this gallery that you’ve seen before).
(2) The next group of photos are when Cara tried solid food for the first time. Don’t worry–she loves solid food now.
(3) I took these photos on a fall day in our backyard. We thought we would put Cara in a box and cover her with leaves. The shots didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped but you can see that Cara was having a blast.
(4) While Ruth and I got ready for work, we would often put Cara in the jacuzzi tub (no water!). We lined the tub with pillows and blankets. Oftentimes, Chloe Jane would climb in the tub with her and they would wrestle and laugh. One day I had my camera handy and took these shots of them playing in the tub.
(5) These photos were taken at a Church picnic.
(6) In 2008, Chloe Jane and Cara went to Pre-school dressed up for Halloween. These are some photos of Chloe Jane and Cara in costume at Chloe Jane’s Pre-school class.
(7) I went to the Children’s museum with Chloe Jane and Ruth. I took some photos. That was before Cara was born and it was the last time I’ve been to the Children’s museum although Chloe Jane and Cara go to it more than any other attraction in the city.
(8) In December of 2008, we thought we would try to do a Christmas card with Chloe Jane playing with the Nativity set–because she loved playing with it–and Cara in the background watching her. These photos are from our attempts to make said Christmas card. The photos didn’t look as good as I had imagined and Cara would not cooperate at all. As you can see from the photos, she was constantly sticking out her tongue. Then Mojo jumped on her lap and no one cared about taking photos anymore. There are also some shots of Chloe Jane decorating the Christmas tree.
(9) These are the photos from our attempt to get a faux-vintage Christening gown photograph of Cara that started all this digital digging in the first place.
(10) On the last day of Pre-school in 2009, I brought my camera to the little carnival that Chloe Jane’s school hosts on the last day. These are some photos from the carnival.
(11) Finally, this next group of photos are odds-and-ends taken in 2008-2009.
Hope you liked them and I’ll try not to let that happen again!