The term “picture perfect” is becoming less relevant these days.
Last week I was in Dallas on a work trip and the week before that I was northern California on vacation spending a lot of time with my wife’s side of the family, which explains the extremely low number of posts for the last couple of weeks. (I’m not the kind of guy who announces “I’m on vacation on the other side of the country!” as my facebook status- I don’t think it’s a good idea to announce to the world when I’m not at home. Maybe that’s just me.) While in Sacramento, I saw a studio portrait of my wife’s family, circa 1985. Everyone was dressed in their Sunday best, wearing big smiles (for the most part), all looking at the photographer (for the most part), and best of all, a fake forest backdrop was used as the background.
Granted, this was the mid ‘80’s, so anything that happened during that time was bound to be excessively cheesy compared to now. But here’s the thing- even today, many professional family portraits are still, at best, hokey. Because they represent a family at a perceived idea of their best, not what is normal or natural. In the past decade as reality shows have begun dominated prime time, sitcoms have become more sophisticated and life-like; by being more satirical and less slapstick, and also by removing the laugh tracks. Yet it can be a difficult thing to make studio family portraits less fake and more real.
And that’s why I’m a snapshot kind of guy.
Just as every family has a “family tree enthusiast”, every family also has a default photographer- and in some family circles, I’m it. I always have my camera with me anywhere I go, ready to snap some shots of whatever unique, random, or funny situation I find family or friends in. That means that a lot of times, not everyone is looking at the camera. But a snapshot can often tell such an interesting story- even if the picture isn’t “picture perfect”.
I am so into snapshots, that it’s part of the name of this website. Last week in Dallas, I met a person who after I told them the name of Scenic Route Snapshots, said to me, “I get it”. I thought that was pretty cool, since a lot of people when they hear the name and try to repeat it, ask me, “Seen a cloudy slapshot?” But in case it needs explanation, the concept of my site is that I tend to write about things that most people wouldn’t think to question on their own. I take an alternative, more laid-back approach to things (the scenic route) and take plenty of snapshots to remember them by (memoirs and journal entries).
But do professional photographers exist that take family portraits that don’t run the danger of being as corny as the opening theme song montage of Full House? Is it possible for a family in the 2010’s to have a portrait made which represents them in a realistic and relevant way? Yes, I’m seeing more and more begin to pop up- often following the “on locale and in character” formula of high school senior portraits and engagement photos, by placing the family in an environment which is familiar and natural for them.
When I think of a professional photographer who perfectly captures the realness and believability of snapshots in his professional work, I think of “Photo Joe” Hendricks who I’ve been friends with since I first moved to Nashville five years ago. As I was trying to conjure an image of what the modern family portrait should look like, I immediately thought of his work, which I’ve included in this post as examples (minus the one at the very top of my wife’s family in 1985). These pictures are the equivalent of a sitcom without laugh tracks- more sophisticated, more natural, and more original.
It took me 12 straight days to teach myself to solve the Rubik’s Cube; it was during this time that my wife and I found out we were going to have a baby. Of course, we didn’t tell anyone until over a month later, but during my “learn to solve a Rubik’s Cube” phase, I had several people crack themselves up with this joke: “If you’ve got the time and patience to solve that thing, it’s time for you to have a kid!” And they were right. My instincts were making it obvious that like so many actors, the time eventually arrives when it’s time to dabble with directing.
(Cue the song “In My Life” by The Beatles as the proper soundtrack as you read the rest of this post. It’s officially my favorite song ever.)
I can look back on my life with satisfaction, knowing that my accomplishments have outweighed my failures and regrets. I have met all kinds of interesting people from all over the world (most of whom are facebook friends). I understand the meaning of life. I am solid in my beliefs on the afterlife. I have married the woman I am meant to be with. I can now solve the Rubik’s Cube in two minutes and twenty-five seconds. And though this paragraph may resemble a goodbye letter to the world as I prepare for my life to come to an end like I’m 90 years old, I recognize that in some ways life as I know it will end, as it transforms into a new one. A more meaningful one. From “me” to “dad”.
On top of all this, I’m about a half a year away from turning 30, so yeah, I’d say it’s time for things to stop being about me so much and more about someone else. I have been the protagonist, but soon I will become a full-time director. All of life has prepared me to this new role. The cynic could see it as circular reasoning- that you spend your youth learning how to become a responsible adult, and then once you do, you just do it all over again with modified little reruns of yourself running around.
But I would say the cynic is still under the assumption that life is all about him- that life either simply ends when he dies or that hopefully when he dies, he’s been “good enough to get to Heaven” or that at least Hell won’t be that bad, but instead just a big party where the temperature is slightly hotter than desired while Jimmy Buffett plays an eternal concert and the margaritas are never-ending.
If anything, I could see how raising a kid will be a redeeming and cleansing process, helping me to see how little I truly know, helping me to appreciate my family and childhood teachers more, helping me to straighten out my priorities even more, helping me to ultimately give more than I take. I could see how this baby will ironically make me a better adult. And how the humility of changing diapers is only a small part of this evolution of my life.
And yes, Baby Jack will probably already know how to solve a Rubik’s Cube before he gets to Kindergarten.
All pictures with the “JHP” logo were taken by Joe Hendricks Photography:
This is me in a video I made for you, which explains all this in a 5 and a half minute video, in case you prefer that over reading the 1378 word blog post below it, which I wrote 7 years ago.
Meet your great-grandfather Isaac. Or Ishmael. Or maybe even both…
How do you determine who ethnically is a “white person” and who is not? Are Jews considered to be white? What about Greeks and Italians? And though Central and South Americans typically have tan skin, why is it there something about them still seems sort of white, as opposed to a person from India or China? These are some of the “side effect” questions that will be answered as I explain my theory on the origin of race and religion.
No, this theory doesn’t start with Adam and Eve. Nor does it start with Noah and his family repopulating the world after the Great Flood. It starts 20 generations after Adam, and 10 generations after Noah, with Abraham (the father of the Jewish and the Arab people), being promised by God that he would have a son in his old age. After waiting and having no sign of this coming true, Abraham’s wife Sarah convinced him to sleep with their Egyptian maidservant Hagar, in order to have a son to carry on the family lineage. At age 86, Abraham goes with his wife’s plan (like the way Adam ate the fruit after Eve convinced him to) and has a son with his maidservant- the son is named Ishmael. However, 13 years later Abraham’s wife Sarah gets pregnant with a son, as God promised, and this son is named Isaac.
Abraham eventually sends away his maidservant Hagar and his son Ishmael into the wilderness (Genesis 21:14), and raises Isaac his as true first-born son. Today, thousands of years later, it is through Ishmael that Arabs and Muslims link their heritage through. Accordingly, Jews and Christians trace through heritage back to Isaac. Now we are in the meat of my theory.
As generations passed and both families migrated from their Middle Eastern homelands, the descendants of Ishmael moved south and east- to Africa, Asia, and America (becoming the Native American Indians in North America and the Aztec Indians in Central and South America). In fact, the angel of the Lord told Hagar that Ishmael “will live east of all his brothers” (Genesis 16:12). Meanwhile the descendants of Isaac moved north and west- to Europe, Russia, and eventually to America (killing off, running off, or marrying the Native American Indians).
Notice how today the countries that are represented by the descendants of Ishmael are generally practice religions that do not involve the Judeo-Christian God (worshipped by Christians, Catholics, and Jews) but instead are tied Hinduism, Animism, Taoism, Buddhism, Communism (Atheism) and Islam. And of course the descendants of Isaac are matched to the Christianized nations: For example, Scotland is mainly Protestant, Ireland is mainly Catholic, and England is mainly Anglican (Presbyterian).
Almost 2,000 years ago thanks the Apostle Paul’s missionary journeys to preach Christ where the Jews had already settled (in Europe, specifically the Mediterranean areas) and also the birth of Christianity as a whole, the countries that were already familiar with the Judeo-Christian God were basically the first to get introduced to Jesus as the Messiah. As far as all the Ishmael-descended areas, like modern day Africa and Asia that were less familiar or not familiar at all with Christianity, they were not and have not typically been as generally open and accepting to “our God” as Isaac’s descendants.
I do believe that whether or not a nation (or individual person) is a descendent of Isaac has much to do with their religion, race, and culture. However, there are obviously exceptions. One of them is Russia, which had been mainly Christian up until the point of its embrace of Communism. Another exception is African-Americans, whom most identify with Christianity, as opposed to most Africans living in Africa.
And then there’s the “half breed” nations that make up Central and South America. For the most part, their blood is mixed of Indigenous Americans (Native American, Aztec, etc.) who migrated from Asia through modern day Alaska, and European lineage from those who “discovered” America. So in essence, the inhabitants of modern day Central and South America are half Isaackian, half-Ishmaelese; though they have accepted the religious beliefs of Isaac’s descendants (largely Catholic). Read more about this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas
Yes, I did just now make up and use the words Isaackian (to describe the descendants of Isaac who are prone to believe in the Judeo-Christian God) and Ishmaelese (to describe the descendants of Ishmael who typically do not). And now that you hopefully understand what those terms represent, I will begin using them frequently.
What started much of this thought process was when I recently began “Climbing the Family Tree” and realized that so many of my ancestors had last names that are Jewish (Schell, Klaar, Ullman, Wiseman, Vite) yet there is no solid proof that I actually am- only family rumors and tradition. If I assume that none of the people in my family tree were Jewish, well, still, I have Jewish names in my family tree. So that got me thinking, Jewish people and “white people” are essentially the same thing, coming from the same common ancestors. Whereas someone who is Japanese (Ishmaelese) wouldn’t have last names in their family tree that would resemble a Jewish last name.
So going back to one of the questions I asked in the beginning, are Jewish people considered to be white? Yes. Though their homeland is Israel and though they are a Middle Eastern people group, they blend in with us Americans so well. And that’s part of my fascination with pointing out which celebrities are Jewish. Half the casts of Friends and Seinfeld are Jewish (The Ethnic Backgrounds of the Cast of Friends and Seinfeld) as well as The Wonder Years (The Ethnicity of the Cast of The Wonder Years), but the fact that most of us don’t know which ones are or aren’t shows that despite most of us being a mix of European blood, those Middle Eastern descended Jews are still our cousins.
Of course ultimately, it doesn’t matter which of us descended from Isaac or Ishmael or how much blood we have of either (I’m around 12.5% Ishmaelese); it just predicts the tone of our skin and our traditional religion, according to my theory. By no means do I see the Isaackians as superior to Ishmaelese for the fact that I myself worship the Judeo-Christian God. But what I do recognize is what God himself proclaimed to Abraham regarding Isaac and Ishmael:
But God said, “No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son and you shall call his name Isaac, and I will establish my everlasting covenant for his descendants after him,” (Genesis 17:19).
“As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold I will bless him, and make him fruitful and multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of 12 princes, and I will make him a great nation,” (Genesis 17:20).
What’s most important from those verses I just quoted is that God promised to establish his covenant through the line of Isaac. In other words, the savior of the world would come in the form of a Jew. Not to mention that the Isaackians coincidently would hold the responsibility of sharing their God with the Ismaelese- that’s why Christian missionaries exist. That’s why Christianity is now the largest religion of the Ishmaelese country of South Korea, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea#Religion
We all have the same great-grandparents at the tops of our family trees. I try to imagine how different the world would be if Abraham wouldn’t have had a son with Hagar, if he just would have waited another 13 years for his own wife to become pregnant. But he jumped the gun and changed the course of history (for him, it was the future) forever. Though if he didn’t, I wouldn’t exist, being that my grandmother is Mexican. Not only would I have not written this and you wouldn’t have read it, but there wouldn’t have been any of this to write about.
Twenty-eight weeks. (The beginning of the 7th month.)
I’ve been thinking how it’s kinda weird that in order for two people to reproduce, there’s no paperwork involved before things can get started. Giving birth to another human being is one of the most life-changing events that can happen to a person. And not just to the family of that new baby, but also to the world-wide network regarding that human interaction of that person’s present and future life. For example, in 1981, my parents had me, and now 29 years later there’s a guy at Aflac getting a commission off my paycheck every week because he sold me an insurance policy three years ago. I am affecting that Afflec guy’s life simply because I am alive. And that’s the slightest of examples!
In the back of my mind, I question why God is okay with the fact that it’s so easy and natural for human beings to be born. If I was God, I would be pretty tempted to prevent certain people from being born, like Adolf Hitler (a pretty obvious choice). And not let future serial killers and rapists be born either. Instead, God allows all kinds of people are allowed to be born into this world, under the best and worst circumstances.
But God doesn’t prevent “ignorant people” from having babies, nor does He keep “bad people” from being born into the world, nor does He prevent unwanted pregnancies. Ultimately, every time a person is born, it’s another opportunity for someone to bring glory to Him, whether they ever do or do not. Not every child who was abused in their youth grows up to repeat the vicious cycle and by becoming an abuser themselves, even if most do. And what about all the babies who were born into this world as a result of rape? What about all the orphans throughout the history of the world who were born destined to die young of starvation or disease?
It’s pretty easy for babies to be born, given that that the father and mother physically can conceive. No paperwork and background check required. So as I tame my wildest fears regarding all the ways I can mess up this kid who is planning to arrive in two months, I have to remind myself, millions of babies have been born into this world under the worst of circumstances and actually turned out okay. My future is as unpredictable and uncertain as anyone’s. Yet I must daily resist thoughts of financial concerns and pointless worries regarding my own conceived incompetence. But all I really can do is enjoy this new life and remind myself of all the countless times God has provided for me before.
All pictures with the “JHP” logo were taken by Joe Hendricks Photography:
I know nothing about how to take care of a baby, yet. But what I do know, and what I have always known when it comes to babies is how to make them laugh and play with them. In the way that women instinctively speak in a high, falsetto voice to babies (I’ve read that that’s the frequency babies hear when they’re that young, as opposed to a normal speaking voice), I automatically become any given idiot monster when I find myself in a situation where a baby is looking at me, waiting for some kind of confirmation.
The default character I play while entertaining babies could best be described as Popeye mixed with Grimace mixed with Beaker: A smiling, squinty-eyed, beeping mutant. But what can I say? Babies like me when I am this fictional goofball.
And really, that’s what happens to any adult when a baby is set in front of them. Adults become ridiculous. That’s one of the many reasons people like babies. Because adults get a free pass to act stupid. All in the name of making a baby happy.
Needless to say, I am so looking forward to my free pass.
All pictures with the “JHP” logo were taken by Joe Hendricks Photography:
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