“Frame the Shot!”

My mom is sitting on a white Adirondack chair on the lawn of the Narragansett Hotel in Block Island. On this day, our plan was to walk to the library and to our favorite gallery but because it had already been a long day, she told me she wanted to rest and sit for a minute and look out over New Harbor for a few minutes before we started up the hill towards Old Harbor.

“You should frame that shot” she tells me. I have my camera out and am trying to figure out how to get the best shot of the entire harbor. She tells me I should use the bushes that are in front of me to “frame the shot”.

The end result is the photo above. I didn’t think it was a great shot but because my mom was passionate about photography and this was something I was interested in learning, I kept going – taking photo after photo.

After a half hour or so of trying to get the best shot, we headed up the hill to the Jessie Edwards Gallery. It was one of my mom’s favorite places to visit because of the diverse backgrounds and styles of the artists whose exhibits were there. As we looked at each painting, mom would tell me why she liked it.

One of the things that always fascinated me was that she never discussed the paintings she didn’t like – she would find something good in all of them and then ask me which ones I liked and why. For the record, she also did this at the Island Free library when we would walk among the stacks and she would select 4 or 5 books to bring back to the boat with her. She would ask me about the authors I liked and why and I would tell her. – The funny thing was that her interests and the books she read would evolve and change a little over time but mine never did. She liked reading books by John Grisham or David Baldacci but as the years progressed, she developed a love for Nicholas Sparks. The authors I told her loved – Elizabeth Berg, Annie Proulx and Leslea Newman are still my favorites today.

And as my love of photography increased, my love for books came to include photography magazines and National Geographic because of how beautiful the photography was. And with each lesson from mom, I kept practicing and practicing to become better at an interest we both shared.

It’s been a year and a half since mom died. Every time I frame a shot, I think of her and that bright sunny day we spent together walking to Old Harbor _ Block Island.