Today marks my 20th season as a photographer for the East Texas Yamboree.
As photographers, we are entrusted with something extraordinary, the ability to freeze a fleeting moment in someone’s life, preserving it as a memory they can revisit for a lifetime. A single photograph can hold a story, an emotion, a milestone, or a chapter of someone's life that time can never take away.
As I reflect on these past two decades, I realize just how many lives have passed before my lens. I have witnessed young faces grow into adults, dreams turn into careers, and generations come full circle. Some have become successful doctors, lawyers, teachers, and leaders in their communities. Others have become parents, raising families of their own and beginning new chapters in the beautiful cycle of life.
And somewhere along the way, a thought occurred to me.
While I spent twenty years freezing moments in other people's lives, perhaps, in some ways, I had frozen a part of my own.
The world around me continued to change. People grew older, pursued their ambitions, built families, and moved on to different seasons of their lives. Yet, year after year, I remained behind the camera, watching, documenting, and preserving the moments that mattered to them.
There is something both beautiful and bittersweet about that realization.
Twenty years later, I am still the photographer. Still standing behind the lens. Still searching for that perfect moment when time seems to stand still.
Perhaps my life wasn't truly frozen after all. Perhaps it was quietly unfolding through the countless lives I was privileged to photograph.
Because while everyone else was busy making memories, I was there making sure those memories would never be forgotten.
Twenty seasons later, the faces have changed, the generations have grown, and the stories continue. But my purpose remains the same, to capture a moment today that someone will treasure for a lifetime.
