I have mentioned before that I have been a journaler for most of my adult life.  Over that time these journals have run the gamut of being trivial daily diaries to poetry to pages that hold my deepest secrets and desires.  The thing that was missing from my journals for most of those years, however, was any entries about the bad times, the sad times, the hard times, the ugly times in my life.  Those aspects of my life were marked simply by the absence of any writing.

When I started taking a photo a day as an extension of my journaling process, I was not able to avoid documenting those not so good days.  When you commit to taking a photo every single day and you want that photo to be an authentic and honest depiction of your life on that day, you will inevitably end up with some photos that are not pretty and may be difficult to take.  From my perspective five years in to a photo a day, I say, “Do it anyway!”

The first time that I was really tasked with taking that difficult photo was the day of my dad’s burial.  I was a year and a half into my photo a day project.  I had become comfortable with carrying my camera with me almost every place that I went.  So I picked it up that morning.  For probably the first time in my life, I honestly did not care what anyone thought about the fact that I was taking photos.

Technically there is probably lots wrong with this image, but I can’t see those things.  What I see is a photo that was taken on the most difficult day of my life and the one photo that I am most grateful to have taken.

Since that wet and cold day in October of 2014, I have not shied away from the difficult photos, though none have been as hard is this one was.  I also have become much better about writing about the not so pretty times.  With maturity comes the realization that the tough days in life make us appreciate the joy-filled days so much more!  With experience we learn to take nothing for granted.  And that is truly a gift.

i hit one of those ugly patches in life last week and it has carried into this week.  I was miserably sick for several days.  It would have been easiest to not take any photos at all, but I didn’t want to break a 1500 day streak.  I have grown to a place where I am perfectly ok with my photos not being “good” as long as they are authentic.  It doesn’t get much more real than this!  I literally rolled over in bed, grabbed my phone, and snapped this.  Done!  Sadly, this was my day!

This sums up where I was after five days of this fever.

About the time I started feeling better, our 12 1/2 year-old lab was hospitalized with pneumonia.  It makes me sad to see him sick.  I don’t like seeing him feeling badly.  But yet again, I pulled out my camera.

And I have documented each day of his hospitalization.

Some day I will be able to look back on this series of photos and take comfort in knowing that we did everything that we possibly could to take care of our boy.

You may not be able to look at the photos of your difficult times immediately.  They may need to reside safely hidden on your hard drive for some time before you are ready to look at them.  I feel confident saying, however, that one day you will be glad to have the photos that depict the harder side of life rather than leaving big holes in your story.

Photograph it all!