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J.J. Killins Photography

Leap Day Time Capsule| Minnesota documentary photography

leap day 2016 time capsule

Four years ago my crafty photographer and scrapbook friends and I put together time capsules from Leap Day 2012, sealed them up with DO NOT OPEN UNTIL LEAP DAY 2016, and then sat back and felt amazed that 2016 was forever away.

Forever away is upon us, my friends! I am gasping at how fast those four years flew by, and thrilled to sit down with my family on Monday to see what we put in there! Frankly it’s kind of a wonder that I haven’t misplaced it in four years.

We are super excited to see what’s inside the 2012 envelope, and looking forward to creating a Leap Day 2016 Time Capsule. I’m here to encourage you to do the same! It’s a fun, easy project to which every family member can contribute.

While you don’t need a ton of supplies for this to be successful, you might want a few days just to think about what you’ll want to include.

Here’s how to create your own Leap Day Time Capsule:

Get a padded or thick envelope, so that anything you put in there will be protected.

Take pictures all day long! Document your day, all of it, from tooth-brushing to shoe-tying to bedtime stories, because I guarantee in four years your routine will look different.

Include snippets from your day:

newspaper (I at least like to include the 7-day forecast)
tracings of the kids’ hands
papers that come home from school

On a piece of paper, write down:

what you all ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (pictures are good here, too!)
family portrait from today (selfie!)
family members’ ages, kids heights
what everyone is reading, favorites such as food and movies and games and colors
have everyone sign their name

Write a love note to each family member.

Put everything in the envelope at the end of the day BUT DO NOT SEAL IT – YET!

The next day, on March 1st, you MUST get those pictures you took printed out. It doesn’t matter if you stop at Walgreens, print them at home, or order them online. You have to take care of this right away, or you will forget and your time capsule will be very sad and incomplete.

As soon as you get your photos, slip them in the envelope, SEAL IT, and label it LEAP DAY 2016 with a special note on there that says, DO NOT OPEN UNTIL LEAP DAY 2020, which of course is forever away.

Looking forward to spring training | Shoreview area photographer

minnesota little league photographerminnesota baseball photographerminneapolis family docmentary photographershoreview area youth baseball photography

It’s no secret that I’m not football fan (but please don’t let that deter you from hiring me as your family photographer; that fact truly has no bearing on my photography skills!), so the end of that sport season for me is joyful because it means baseball season can’t be too far away. Twins players report for spring training this month! Oh, to report somewhere warm for spring training…

I digress. Probably just my numb fingertips typing whatever they please.

I am lucky enough to have my own little baseball player here, and this boy is greatly looking forward to his own season starting. The official season is so short in comparison to how long he plays. Well into the evening, before school, all weekend long, months before, several months after. Live, breathe baseball, and try to get all the neighborhood kids to forget about all the other sports for awhile.

I would just love to see the family photographs of some of the guys who are playing professional baseball now. Do their moms have albums full of pictures of their little guy pitching? It seems that all my summer and fall folders are full of pictures with this label on it.

Whatever your kiddo is passionate about, go and snap a picture of it today. They will thank you one day.

St Anthony Main | Minneapolis family photography

minneapolis family photographer

Today I’m sharing a lovely pair of kiddos that were new to me this fall and had such fun personalities! (And, goodness, looking at these images from fall are making me wonder if we really appreciated the colors and crisp air and not subzero-ness of that season!)

shoreview family photographer

I love it when moms know what they want their session to be about, where they want to go, and what will suit their kiddos best because then we get lots of natural-looking, fun smiles! I also love when they have a destination in mind where I haven’t done a session because that feels new and fresh. This family session was a Portrait Refresher that took place in Minneapolis, on the street of the St. Anthony-Main area, which has wonderful brick, colorful doors, and lots of fall color.

Showing you new ideas of places to take pictures is a great help when you’re thinking about where your J.J. Killins Photography session can take place!

Bunches of regular days | Project 365 | Minnesota photojournalism

project 365 minnesota photographer

Still plugging away at my Project 365 for 2015, which means lots of culling, resizing, editing. I can’t wait until I see all 365 pictures in album form. I hope there is movement in it, I hope the seasons are evident, the highs and lows and bunches of regular days.

If there is one belief this project – taking a photo every single day of 2015 – solidified for me, it’s thankfulness for the bunches of regular days. It’s not big outings, vacations, or even birthdays, although all of those things were truly special in 2015. It’s just noticing moments of regular days that stand out as beautiful. Thankfully, even though I am done with my 365, I am still seeing these moments.

We are currently knee-deep in the dust of a home remodeling project, so I am posting this here not only as encouragement for all of you in the midst of the long month of February, but also for myself as I struggle with the upheaval that comes with caring for your home. Beauty truly is there, even on days when it looks a little dust-covered.

The passing of time | Shoreview family photographer

first day of school minnesota

I had a birthday yesterday. Not the Big One, that’s next year. Being a year away from The Big One makes me want to make a plan for The Big One. Does anyone else feel this at 29, 39, 49? (For the record, my number is 39.) It’s like there’s a timer and you know when it will buzz and that it will be a big day and you can’t wait til that day to figure it out. I’m not real great with decisions, so that’s not helping.

I’m also editing the heck out of my 2015 images – the Project 365 ones, and the others. I took a lot more pictures last year because of my Project 365, because while you’re out there in the 85 degrees getting one shot of the kids water-ballooning, you might as well take 30. So there’s a lot of culling going on. I love my kids, but I don’t need 30 shots of them water-ballooning. Maybe 20? Culling might be the hardest part of being a photographer, but it’s also where I find quite a few gems that I had previously just dumped from camera to desktop and not really examined.

Like this one, first day of school this year. First day of fifth grade. But that was so long ago, when the grass was green and the sun shone all day and snow pants were still stored.

But not that long ago, right? And tonight I am taking her to middle school information night, knowing full well that I will blink and middle school information night will turn into first day of middle school.

All this to say, in the first part of the year I have the opportunity to get back to my own images, now that client Christmas pictures are complete. There are so many folders for each month of 2015; it is truly daunting. But there are the gems, hidden, waiting to be re-discovered. If you have billions of images on your desktop, laptop, iPad, phone, whatever, just get them off there and look at them. That’s the first step. Maybe pick ten favorites if you’re opposed to ordering prints of all of them. And then click the order button so that you can have your gems at home with you.

J.J. Killins photography

Serving Shoreview, Minnesota & the Twin Cities