Kids

There. But not there.

Tonight my daughter had a chorus concert at her school. It was awesome! She wore a school t-shirt and khaki shorts (the appropriate dress for the concert), sang her heart out, and even had a voice part to introduce one of the songs. It was a moment that normally I would have for all of you to see. I would have had my camera..and my tripod..and it would have been uploaded within hours of the conclusion of the concert. I would publish it on Facebook for my friends to see and send an email out to my extended family with the link. “They will feel like they were there!” I would rationalize. But that won’t happen this time because I didn’t take video. I also didn’t take my phone out to take pictures.

I did this because I realized that in my attempt to make others feel like they were there, I, the camera man (and the one physically there) would not be “there”. Instead of listening, I would be making sure she was in frame, the sound was good, I got the best unobstructed view. That’s not being there.

I also did it because I don’t want my daughter to look out into the audience and see this:

Photo on 6-20-13 at 10.02 PM

Instead I want her to see my smiling face looking right back at her.

When we got home tonight, she said she saw me smiling back at her. That’s how I documented tonight. So, you see, you’ll just have to take my word for it when I say she was awesome and I am so proud of her.

Gregory Ng

GOAL: Visit 100 National Parks as a family by 2020. Favorite Parks: Zion National Park, Mt Rainier National Park, Valley Forge National Historical Park

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:
Twitter

Comments

comments