By Kat Knuth

Longmont Family Photographer

I was recently asked by my photography mentor about my “why.” Why am I a photographer? Why did I want to become a photographer?

Why?

I’ve been thinking about how to answer ever since. I could spew some noncommittal nonsense about always loving taking pictures or getting into travel photography while in graduate school. While neither statement is a lie, they don’t get to the heart of the question. They just poke the surface.

So how to answer?

When I was little, looking through pictures was my favorite thing to do. My family moved around a lot and often pictures were how I learned the faces of my relatives. In fact, because my father was deployed when I was a baby, it was how I learned who he was. Every night, my mother and I would say goodnight to his portrait on the wall. When he returned, I was a little over a year old and very much a momma’s girl. I cried when he tried to hold me and clung to my mother’s neck. She pointed to the portrait and back at my father, trying to get me to connect the two. I followed her finger but still wouldn’t go near him. The legend ends when my dad fell asleep on the couch that night and I wandered over to give him a kiss on the cheek.

Every night, my mother and I would say goodnight to his portrait on the wall.

As I grew older and made friends, pictures were how I remembered what I left behind. My grandmother gave me an antique disk camera when I was around 7 years old that I took everywhere with me. I took pictures of my friends, the world as I saw it, everything. It felt like, packing for a move in a way. Organizing memories into little squares that can be easily transported from one place to another.

I appreciate this need to document my experiences most when I have to reach through my archives to find something. Recently, a friend of mine passed. It was a total shock, as young people’s deaths often are. I immediately went through my digital photos, looking for his face. I needed to see him as I remembered him. I found pictures I’d forgotten taking–smiling, partying, laughing. I sent several to his other friends, eager to share what pieces I’d kept of him with them. In the lead up to his funeral, we all posted some of those pictures on social media, remembering what his friendship meant to us. I wished I’d taken more pictures, kept more of him around, but was so grateful for what I did have.

I guess, to pull all these strings of thought together, photography to me is the ability to share what I experience, however limited in view, with the people I love. Becoming a photographer is how I help others achieve the same. Becoming a photographer in Longmont, Colorado, is just the cherry on top. Who wouldn’t want to take pictures of such lovely people in such a gorgeous state?

To me, you never regret the pictures you take, no matter how good, bad, embarrassing, or ridiculous. But when your memory fades and the people in your photos begin to disappear, that’s when you regret not capturing more moments. As a Longmont family photographer, photography is how I turn irreplaceable memories into art that lasts.