A Lesson with Lights

Sometimes things don't turn out like I imagine they should. Sometimes I over expect. Sometimes I spend too much time pumping myself up for something and end up disappointed in the end. In some cases it's a fault of mine, but then other times it's not. It happened to be a fault the other evening when we headed out to the "Historic Downtown Lights Up" event on the square. I have always wanted to go and for one reason or another in the five years that we have been living in BG, we haven't been able to attend. This year I knew we just had to go.
I had high hopes of watching the lights come on, seeing Seth's face light up, and sipping on hot cocoa while enjoying the evening with my sweet little family. But of course, I also wanted the whole event documented because I am totally obsessed with capturing it for all time. It's another fault of mine. I learned my lesson that night though.

We arrived about 15 minutes before the lighting ceremony was supposed to begin. We walked around aimlessly for a few minutes and finally decided we would sit on a bench near the fountain. It was cold, not unbearably cold, but cold. It was dark. We had a one year old that didn't want to sit still and didn't understand that he was going to be surrounded by lights in just a matter of minutes. When you combine all of those things with trying to take a good picture, it just doesn't work out too well. I had big dreams that I would be able to have some beautiful pictures of Seth surrounded by lights. But instead we ended up with a few crazy shots, a few mediocre ones, and three Tillery's that were ready to go five minutes after the lights were flipped on.Total FAKE Smile

It was not the evening I had anticipated and we left irritable (mostly because of me and my pouty attitude) and I left feeling completely disappointed. The problem was I was so focused on capturing the moment that I wasn't living in the moment. I have heard it many times by many people. Sometimes, you just have to put the camera down.
Because Bryan could sense my complete disappointment and the irritability from that night was just a faint memory, we went back to the Square to try to enjoy the lights a few days later. We headed out early so that any photo ops were more likely to turn out, but we focused on just enjoying our time together. While we were there snow flurries were falling which made our evening even more special. Seth got to run around. We saw lots of lights. We giggled and played. We were living in the moment...

and it just so happens that we were able to get a few cool shots, too.