Photographic Memories

HP Photo Books are perfect for sharing memories. In these interviews, mom bloggers share their thoughts on photography and the photos that captured the special moments of their lives.

To read an interview, select the woman's blog:

Holli Gould, Baby Faith

Holli Gould has had to deal with a lot in her life, and she chronicles it all on her blog, Baby-Faith, named for, and mostly about, her adorable daughter Faith. But through it all, she manages to keep a sense of humor. Because "all you need is a little Faith."

Holli has been interested in photography as long as she can remember. She recalls that as a child she adored snapping pictures with the family instant camera and wondered if her mother might still have some of them in an "enormous, unorganized box of pictures that has grown totally out of control over the years."

She took a photography class in college and then "set it aside" for a few years. When her daughter was born, she realized that she absolutely had to have a nice digital camera, and "over the years, my obsession with documenting our lives together has inspired me to improve my technique... I really want to capture more than just images."

Her first digital camera was a point-and-shoot, and she now uses a digital SLR.

Holli has a very special relationship with her young daughter and her favorite shots are "anything involving Faith, Faith and more Faith -- and Nate, our dog."

Including her favorite shot that she took herself, a picture entitled Be vewy vewy quiet; I'm hunting wabbits: "For three days, Faith insisted we wear matching stuffed, blue "bunny" ears on our heads. I was about to take mine off because my head was starting to hurt from the wire denting my head, plus three days of fake bunny ears is plenty. But we spotted bunnies in our backyard! Neither one of us thought twice about the fact that I was wearing pajamas, she had no pants and we both had on fake ears. We just grabbed our cameras and ran out the door."

Holli recalls that they followed the bunnies around the yard. Faith was taking pictures of the bunnies with her camera, her first big allowance purchase so she could go on "camewa missions" like Mommy, and Holli was taking pictures of Faith: "There is just something about the whole moment that is pure magic. I'll never forget our house with all the bunnies, a time when Faith was still little enough to run free in a diaper, days of dressing like rabbits for no reason, and seeing so much of myself in my child, right down to the tiny pink camera on her wrist. I wuv that pic."

Holli says she can rarely get Faith to pose for pictures, but she loves it when she can get a combination of posed and candid— a photo she has set up, but with Faith smiling freely. She's particularly fond of the picture she is currently using at the top of the blog. Holli says "She's such a "sunshine baby" and always happy - but Faith is wise beyond her years, and I love seeing something that shows what I perceive as thoughtful."

Looking at Holli's photos, I noticed that she often shoots from odd or interesting angles. I asked her if this was deliberate, and if so, what attracted her about this approach. She hadn't really thought about this until I asked, but said that she doesn't particularly care for straight-on pictures, with everyone and everything "right in its" place. "To me, that isn't life. We don't get to line things up in our vision before looking, and I'm always hoping there is some way I can capture the scale of something with an angle... or just show the way I see it. I don't like perfect. I've always said that perfection in itself is a flaw. I usually walk right up to what I'm shooting and try to figure out how the camera can capture my vision. I'm not sure if this is the best technique— but life would be boring if everything was 'as it should be.'"

Holli is going to use her HP Photo Books to catch up on printing her pictures. She plans to use one book for pictures that aren't Faith related, and the other, of course, for pictures of Faith. She thought a Photo Book would make a nice gift for her sister, who is about to have her second child: "I didn't have the photography experience when the girls [Faith and her sister's first child] were babies to capture the things I wanted. I feel now my skills are at a point I could create something really special. Or maybe I could just make a book with all three grandchildren and give that to Nana and Poppy. Pictures are their favorite gift in the whole wide world."

For herself, she would do "series books": "I like things with themes - like tutus or bubbles. You don't need a special occasion to be happy, and I don't believe people should save pictures for holidays. One of the most frequent comments left on my blog is "It's wonderful you take so many pictures of your daughter - I wish I had done the same thing with my child when he/she was that age." Capture the memories - you'll never regret it."

Do you print your photos on a regular basis or just share them digitally?
"I bought a really nice photo printer specifically so I could print all these fantastic photos, however, I am extremely indecisive and got stuck somewhere in the "what to print" phase. Also, we had a horrendous cross-country move recently. Someone - not me - packed my printer crooked in the car and it is now printing everything blurry and gunked up so my really nice photo printer is now an expensive, unused piece of junk."

Photos by Holli Gould
Interview by Susan Getgood