Ok so I have maybe like 30 photos, but they were just found last year. Otherwise I had one photo of me. ONE photo. Standing outside my mom's house, behind my dad's best friend's brown Ford truck, wearing a pink long sleeve shirt, green pants, and brown cowboy boots holding a pack of donuts.

This one photo means so much to me. It was the ONLY photo I had of my childhood for so long.

My mother, who used to take TONS of photos and I mean tons, would get them developed at Costco and then just leave them everywhere and or store them random places. She has a severe case of hoarding to the point the house that I was growing up in, was unlivable (and to be honest should be condemned). Because of her mental illness/disease, many of the photos were ruined, lost, destroyed, etc.

She kicked me out right after I graduated high school, so I left her house with two black trash bags full of clothes, books, yearbooks, etc, whatever was the most important to 18 year old me and moved in with my dad. And it was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me.

But no photos. Why? Because they were gross, and ruined, and scattered about the house. Trust me I looked to see if I could find any worth salvaging.

I had a few from high school and participating in the color guard as other parents would take photos and give them as gifts (my parents never went to competitions/shows). So I still have a few of them. And as social media is so popular, many other photos I've seen or come across are much in the same, other parents taking photos of me with their child, and then I'm tagged in it.

Last year though, as my sister was helping my dad clean and organize, she came across a good 30 pictures or so of me as a baby. And I mean from a few months old to like 4 years old.

And I cried.

I cried holding those photos and looking at them. I cried because I could finally see me as a baby and what my dad looked like as a new father again. I cried because I could finally see parts of my history that were so foreign to me.

It's moments like that that make me so passionate about photography. And I'm not even talking about professional photos. Just take tons of pictures with your phone or point and shoot camera. Back them up everywhere you can so you don't lose them. Print them and hang them up for all to see. Be proud of your family and history and each significant moment in people's lives.

What I would give to be able to go through albums of each year of my life. What I would give to have more photos from my childhood to be able to show my son and talk about who each person was and what we were doing or where we were.

Photos tell stories. They capture moments and freeze them forever. They provide a window into the past. And they teach future generations about who you were, and where you came from.

Take photos. Irritate your children by being that parent wanting a photo in front of the weird looking monument during every pit stop on a family vacation.

Just please, take photos. They're so important. As someone who barely has any from their childhood, they are easy to take and store now a days and you never know when someone may come back and ask about a certain event that they want to relive. Be prepared.