Violet Film

Once upon a time, there was an optimistic young woman without children.  She had a handsome young husband with ants in his pants who loved the outdoors.  He often left her alone on Saturdays while he went off to shoot and catch things, allowing her to spend long hours in her basement darkroom.  She went on photo shoots with her friends, attended camera club meetings, and mastered the techniques of sepia toning, dodging-and-burning, and handtinting.  On the days that she wasn’t in the darkroom or out shooting, she was matting and framing her creations or placing them in photo scrapbooks.  Although she loved her landscapes, still lifes, and photos of her pets, she longed for the day when she would be able to photograph her children.  She just needed to bear some for that dream to come true.

After several years of marriage, our young heroine and her dashing husband were finally able to achieve their dream of having a child.  In preparation for the child’s birth, the young woman spent an obscene amount of money on a brand-new technology:  the digital SLR camera.  Her new camera arrived with a whopping (can you believe it!) six megapixels!  She bought the camera three months before the child was to be born, giving her plenty of time to practice with it and master the new technology.  But alas, the child was born 2-1/2 months early.  The young woman used the camera a lot during the next year or so, but eventually set it aside for the ease of a point-and-shoot she could cram into her purse.

Over the next few years, the young woman (who was getting older every day) never forgot about her camera or her days in the basement darkroom.  She tried a few times to learn Photoshop, but failed.  She had a little bit more success with Photoshop Elements, but eventually she cast it aside, as well.  Several years of therapy, multiple rounds of Botox (for the child, not the woman), three moves, and a surprise pregnancy all but killed the no-longer-all-that-young woman’s dream of becoming a decent digital photographer.

One day after the birth of her second child, the no-longer-all-that-young woman was talking with her still-dashing-but-now-balding husband.  Her dear husband said something to her that day that changed her life forever:  “Everything you do is wrapped up in these kids.”  Now, that may not seem like a particularly profound statement, but it caused a light bulb to go off in the woman’s head.  She decided to make some changes.

The woman decided to take up knitting, and, on the advice of a friend, taught herself how to knit using YouTube.  She dusted off her camera (woefully outdated, but still in perfect working order!)  She downloaded a trial version of Photoshop Elements.  When the 30-day trial ran out, she downloaded it again on her firstborn’s netbook and asked her dear husband to give her the serial number and a tablet for Christmas.  She knit goofy hats for her children, took photos of them in the hats, and placed the photo in the header of her blog.  She created a watermark for her pictures (not because she is trying to brand herself or because she thinks her photos are so great that someone might want to steal them – she did it just because she could!)

And the woman began to feel a little bit like her old self.  And she hoped that recapturing a little bit of her old self would help her be a better mom, and a better wife.

And on January 1, 2011, Violet Film was born.