I always loved photographs, but only really started to value them when I left home to live in a different country. The distance somehow makes every little keepsake you have from back home so much more precious…
This is my mum.
The photo on the right is the latest professional, studio portrait of her and it is her graduation portrait.
I do have a few more photos of her, but not near enough. She is like all mums – doesn’t like to be photographed (‘oh, I need to get my hair done’ ‘don’t take a picture of me, I hate this shirt’ ‘not me, I’ll take a picture of you two’) and everything and everybody else is more important than herself.
For me, of course she is one of the most important human beings on the whole wide world. This is why I felt my world almost collapsed when a few years ago my dad called me to say Mum was diagnosed with breast cancer and she was having a surgery within a week. I dropped everything and sat on a plane to be there and I am so so unbelievably grateful that it’s now years later and she is fine and still here for me.
She is still very uncomfortable when anyone points a camera at her, but I’m on a mission. I still live in a different country so don’t get a chance often enough, but I do point my camera at her at every opportunity I get. And I also get other people to point the camera at us.
I don’t particularly like photos of myself either (my latest studio session was my graduation portrait too), but now I know how important they are. For me, and for my future children. This is why next time I’m at home in Hungary, I am taking Mum to have a mother-daughter portrait session. She more than deserves it and I get to have a new set of photographs to cherish forever.
So this is what I recommend for you to do as well.
Treat your mum. Let her not worry about anything for a day. We’ll get her hair and make-up done, we’ll style her, we’ll guide her, we’ll spoil her. And if you want to join her for a double makeover? Even better! You know she would love that!
