Nothing Gold Can Stay
By: Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.
You either read that poem in high school English class, or if you grew up in the 80's like me, you might remember the movie The Outsiders and a dying Johnny (Ralph Macchio) in a hospital bed, telling C. Thomas Howell to, "Stay Gold, Ponyboy."
The poem, like childhood, is short but memorable; full of beauty, joy, innocence. It strikes a chord in all of us. We've all been a kid. Some of us may want to still be a kid or at least, live like one, free of stress, worry, self-doubt. Of course, we can't. Once grown, and full of responsibilities, we can never go back to those days. But we can remember them, preserve them, with photos.
Photos of our childhood can transport us, take us right back to those moments before, during and after the shutter click. My favourite childhood photos are of Christmas mornings, bed-headed and full of huge smiles, wrapping paper littered around me and my brother, our new awesome toys in our hands. For me, it was usually Star Wars toys, Cabbage Patch Kids or, when I was 7, Tippy Toes doll, a plastic doll with curly blond hair who held onto the back of the pink plastic stroller she came with and when you pushed the stroller, her dimpled plastic legs moved up and down as she walked with you. Those photos are like gold for me.
Most people naturally grow out of childhood into adulthood - nothing gold can stay. But for some, it's taken away. My childhood came to a rather abrupt stop when I was 12 and my parents had an ugly divorce. I lost not just my dad and my brother, but my whole extended family on my Dad's side, because of it. They dropped out of my life for many years and still, 26 years later, most of them consider me an outsider from the family. The photos of my life, my childhood, before the divorce are that much more important to me because of it and that's why I choose the name of my business to reflect the value I put on what I do and why I do it.
Preserving childhood is what I like to think that I do with every session, every image I create. Be it an image of a baby, a child, an expectant mom or a family, I watermark those photos with my business name and my wish for them to "Stay Gold."
