After my mother recently passed away, an important lesson that she taught me from a child was to be grateful.  Gratitude or the state of being grateful is something that I try to express in everything I do particularly through my work as a professional photographer now living in Virginia.  I am grateful for each client that sits in front of my camera and for each 30 or 40 inch print they purchase as a keepsake for their home.  I am also grateful that my clients have chosen Leonard Bethel Fine Art Photography as their professional photographer. 

This thing called life —it is a gift to us from someone much greater than us all — we didn’t request it; therefore, it is my belief that as we go about each day that we show our gratitude for the gift of life.  Let us be grateful for our health, our jobs, our professions and our friendships.  Let us stop complaining about petty things out of our control and learn that we have the power to make changes in our lives that can bring about our own joy and happiness.  Let us be grateful for each passing day, hour, minute and second.  Each moment given to us is an opportunity to love ourselves more deeply and those close to us.  That’s why at, Leonard Bethel Fine Art Photography, we work hard for our clients and give them our best effort to create photographic memories that will last for generations to come.

Let us also be grateful for our families and particularly our parents —if they are still with us.  One way to show our gratitude to our parents is to photograph them in a way that we want to remember them. This is something many of us can easily do.  What's the delay? Get it done.

When I meet with my clients for a design consultation I have a tendency of asking them, “When was the last time you had a portrait taken with your mother and/or father or your family?”  Depending on the response I would follow up and ask, “What are you waiting for?”  Time waits for no one: let’s get it done.  I explain to my clients in Virginia, as well as my clients in Miami, that getting a family portrait is crucial to your family’s life story.  It is important to your children and their children that they have something tangible to place on the wall or in an album to remind them of how blessed they were to have had you in their lives.  A selfie with a cellphone can never replace a professionally created family portrait. So instead of settling for a selfie and searching through an old cell phone, swiping up and down for ten minutes, allow a professional photographer to capture that special family moment that will be cherished for a lifetime.

I am so very grateful that I worked with a sense of urgency and had a portrait of my mother and I created by a professional photographer.  I am also grateful that I took it upon myself to create several portraits of her. That time of being with her and visiting with her is gone forever.  Thankfully, I am reminded each and everyday, when I look at her images on my walls, of how grateful and blessed I was to have enjoyed a large part of my life with her.

Allow us, at Leonard Bethel Fine Art Photography, to capture a moment in time that will be cherished for generations to come.  A picture may be worth a thousand words but a professional portrait created of a loved one, by Leonard Bethel Fine Art Photography, is priceless.