Joy of Love: Day 3

For the longest time, there was a photo of my husband and me from 1994 stashed away in the glove box of our car. I'm unsure how or why the pic was hanging out in the car. It is not like we make a habit of storing our photographs in our vehicle, but it hung out there for years. When we got a new vehicle this past summer, I took the photo inside. It's edges are ripped, and there is a hole hovering right above my head.

It was snapped of the two of us in my in-law's basement sometime during the summer following our high school graduation. My husband, then boyfriend, is strumming his electric guitar, long hair tucked behind his ear, while I peak over his shoulder adoringly. I love this photo of the two of us. It captures who we were and who we still are today in many ways. My husband smiles down at his guitar, but you can see my arms encircling his waist, so the viewer is not quite sure if he's smiling because he's engaged in one of his favorite pasttimes - making music - or if he's smiling because we're so close. I'd like to think it's both.

This morning when I opened my email to find my latest assignment as part of the online Joy of Love course, I knew I wanted to do something with this treasured photo. But in order to use it, I had to take a picture of the picture and do some creative cropping. Our assignment: thinking about how cropping can reframe an image, changing the intention and meaning for the viewer. We were to use this idea as we tried to capture a moment that showed how a loved one has changed over the years.

My husband is not one to sit for a photo session, so I propped my camera on a stool, set the timer button, and told him to grab his guitar. This was the first take. Luckily, it mirrored the image from over 15 years ago. Just goes to show, the more things change, the more the stay the same.

Click HERE to see how others framed today's assignment.