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:

Jennifer Hunter, The Gloriously Mundane

Jennifer Hunter used to be a high school English teacher, which explains the wonderful name of her blog, The Gloriously Mundane. Now she divides her time between her family, including toddler son Eli, and a budding career as a professional photographer.

Jennifer's earliest memory of an interest in photography is from elementary school when she signed up for a photography class through her school's 4-H club: "I've always appreciated beautiful images and loved to have a camera with me wherever I went -- school parties, field trips, you name it. "

She recalls: "A deeper love of photography emerged when my son was born, and I discovered how blissful it was to capture his every wiggle and gurgle."

Her first camera was the film camera she got for that 4-H class. Now she mainly shoots with a digital SLR, but also uses a point and shoot camera that fits in her purse for everyday shots.

One of Jennifer's favorite photographic memories is a photo of herself taken at Disneyworld when she was about four years old: "I'm wearing mouse ears, and I have this thrilled look on my face that is just pure bliss. When I'm sad or weary about the difficulties of growing up, being an adult, and just accepting life, I think about that little girl with the smile from mouse ear to mouse ear."

A more recent favorite is an image she captured of her husband and son watching a ship come in to a dock: "Their expressions are so intent, and I just adore it, almost as much as I adore them."

Jennifer, like most photographers whether professional or amateur, found it hard to narrow it down to a single favorite, but managed to select a black-and-white image of her son when he was about 13 months old. She recalls: "He's standing in his high chair, something he had just figured out how to do, and he has this look on his face as if to say, "I've made it to the top of the mountain, and I am proud. And now, I shall make my great escape." It moves me every time I look at it."

She said that with a constantly moving toddler, candids are pretty much the order of the day, but she generally prefers them as well: "I love candids because they capture raw emotion so much more authentically than a posed shot. Don't get me wrong, there are some beautiful aspects of posed photographs, and they certainly have their place, but candids just tug at my heart strings so much more. They are the photographs of our lives."

Jennifer lives a great distance away from the extended family of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, and thought she might use one of her HP Photo Books to create a family tree of photos, with captions about each person: "Then each week I'll sit with my son and look at the book together so that he 'gets to know' and remember his family far away."

Her other Photo Book was destined for photos of her wedding. "We have some great candids that I never really arranged like I wanted into an album. We just celebrated our 5th anniversary, so it would be a great gift to me and my husband."

See more of Jennifer's pictures of her family at the Flickr group Photographic Memories.

Do you print your photos on a regular basis or just share them digitally?
"I mainly share my photos digitally because I take SO many that it's hard to keep up with printing everything. But I love a print. There's just something about holding a photo in your hand or physically flipping through an album. I also love to give prints as gifts. Parents and grandparents love that!"

Photos by Jennifer Hunter.
Interview by Susan Getgood