Tiny Tuesday - American Flag Portrait Session and I Heart Faces Photo Challenge

June 12, 2012

During Memorial Day weekend, I did a mini Red, White and Blue styled shoot with my little man and I'm highlighting it here today for my Tiny Tuesday post. When we stepped outside to photograph the session, my son specifically requested that it was just me and him, knowing I had done a session two days earlier with his big sister.

We just went outside our home, across the street, and near the few homes surrounding ours. We brought his little red wagon, an American Flag for him to hold, and he wanted to bring his favorite teddy bear, Corduroy (named after the Corduroy book series).

He was adorable in his red, white, and blue shirt that I found in The Children's Place a few days earlier. He was waving his flag and being goofy and a few minutes into the session, I asked him to hug his teddy bear. The result was the photo below of my sweet, little man kissing his American Flag.

Days later, when finally sitting down to post-process this image, I fell in love with it. He is my cute boy, so happy to be holding his American Flag. He is proud of this flag. And I'm thankful for all of the men and women that have fought to protect this country, protect us, and protect our freedoms. This image reminded me that we should all be proud to be Americans. Thanks to my little man for giving me the best reminder of why we celebrate Memorial Day.

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Update: February 5, 2013

If you have ever followed along with iheartfaces.com, then you may have seen their photo challenges. This month's photo challenge is LOVE. And while I have a ton of images of children, families, parents, siblings and couples in love - this one just jumped out at me. This one photograph represents the love we feel for our country. You don't have to live in the United States to understand the pride you feel for your own hometown, city, state or country where you live. But I do love the United States, and this image just captures all of that for me.

I have had military personnel tell me that this image nearly brought them to tears, because it just means so much to them. It represents everything for them.

And whenever I look at this image, in my head I can hear myself saying, "May you always love your country this much, little man." And then I just want to give my little man a big squeeze too.