The image of us

If you read my blog you know that I often mention my good friend Kyle. For those of you who don't know Kyle, she's a blogging wedding photographer living in Chile and she and her hubby Seba are awesome people and dear friends of ours.

Back in 2009 Kyle and Seba came to stay with us in Paris for a few days and graciously accepted to do a photo shoot of us. We were both pretty nervous and didn't really know what to expect being as how we'd never posed for a photo shoot in our life (even our wedding album is a painful thing to see). But Kyle and Seba did a great job at getting us to relax and, mainly thanks to their talent and great eye, got some amazing shots where we actually look pretty good despite the fact that I vividly recall feeling extremely self conscious the entire time.

Here are a few of my favorite shots from that shoot:

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when again, Kyle and Seba met up with us here in London and again agreed to do a shoot for us. Again, we were feeling pretty nervous and self conscious the entire time and again, the photos came out really great, (this is Kyle and Seba after all). See below:

Since neither Hubby nor I have consciously changed anything in our appearance or lifestyles between the shoots I guess I wasn't expecting to be so shocked and surprised at how different we look this time around.

I can't put my finger exactly on what it is exactly that feels and looks different to me but something does. At first I thought it was just that we must look older in the 2011 pictures, after all 2 years have gone by. But the more I look at them the more I think it's not exactly that.

It's like I can actually see the time that has passed between the shoots but not necessarily because there are gray hairs or eye wrinkles to show for it. It's more as if I can feel what Hubby and I have lived through between the shoots. The experiences we've shared, the trips we've taken, the things we've seen, the mistakes we've made, the highs and lows we've weathered through hand in hand, the ups and downs of our life together.

When I look at both sets of pictures I can very vividly see the Fned and Hubby of 2009 and remember their dreams and goals shining through their eyes and reflecting back at me. And then I look at the Fned and Hubby of 2011 and see the effect that those dreams coming true (or not) has had on us since then. I can see how some of those old 2009 dreams have shifted and become something new, something changed, something different that now shines back from a new set of eyes that are so familiar and yet so different, somewhat wiser, from those of 2009. It's like they no longer reflect the same things but are instead looking at a different horizon, planning a new direction, gazing through a different perspective of things.

I find it very interesting that thanks to Kyle and Seba's magical talent I am able to compare these two slices of our life and it makes me wonder what will the slice look and feel like a few years from now.

After all, this is now starting to feel like a tradition Kyle... you know you'll have to come and photograph us when we move on to our next country, right ?? :-)

Fned.