And, as it always has, life moves forward.

Senior Pictures, graduation pictures, professional headshots, weddings, engagement sessions and family reunions fill the May calendar.

I’m delighted to see the joy on the faces of the college students, who have admirably kept their optimistic resolve through what was an awful final semester for them (and everyone else) at IU (and everywhere else).

My love of photography takes so many forms…. One avenue that brings me so much personal joy is photographing my awesome little pug, Grace, and posting a weekly Facebook message that includes an image of her.

We call her a train-wreck of a pug. She’s got a dramatic underbite. Her tongue is almost always hanging out. She’s high-wired, whereas a normal pug is kind of mellow. She has remarkable bursts of energy where seemingly running a marathon wouldn’t minimize her zest for life. She refuses to eat dog food — instead preferring scrambled eggs, string cheese, popcorn and blueberries. She was the last of her siblings to be adopted — apparently nobody else wanted her. A Charlie Brown Christmas tree, of sorts. Gracie is an odd creature, in so many ways, but I love her madly.

Check out and “follow” her Facebook page if you’d like…. It’s a tiny, but wonderful, opportunity for me to put a small touch of kindness into the community once each week….

https://www.facebook.com/MaggieThePug/

Kayaking is such a blessing. There’s nothing the compares to the tranquility of a silent ride on a peaceful lake at sunset. I’ve always believed that we’re capable of creating (perhaps tasked to do so…) our own version of Heaven while here on Earth.

I feel fortunate that so many of my life’s loves are solitude-oriented — distance running, motorcycle riding, kayaking, wildlife photography, reading, and others. I think silence is my energy source. I give thanks daily for moments of quiet peace that, in turn, fuel the day.

It appears May 1st will be our back-to-business day!

I’m delighted to be able to photograph all the May sessions we’ve had long-lined up. As well, if you’d like to talk with me about a booking for you, your family, business, team or organization, just give me a call or write me a quick note (“Contact” tab).

While the community, state, nation and world remain on alert, I do believe it’s important to let at least a few more industries and businesses return to work. As a photographer, I feel our profession is, if not essential, without question irreplaceable. Capturing moments for people in their private lives, and as part of their work lives, serves a unique and vital role in our collective appreciation of how we see the world. Photography makes the world, with apologies for the cliche, a better place.

There is so much we cannot do right now.

But, there is more that we can, in fact, still do.

The key is in the latter, and we’ve got to do what we can do while (and because) we can still do it.

Life is the sum of the moment and the opportunity.

French Lick, Indiana. 2020.

If the world ends this coming Easter weekend I won’t be surprised. If the world continues onward past this coming weekend, giving every living person a reset button following a worldwide pandemic, I won’t be surprised. The common denominator? We’re moving forward each hour toward our own personal death, and how we face that fact defines what our life is/was.

Like most self-employed business owners, I’ve lost, already, half my annual income this year due to the COVID-19 situation. Schools were cancelled, taking with them senior pictures, graduation ceremonies and professional headshots. Weddings were cancelled/postponed/downsized, taking away the highest percentage of my annual income. Family gatherings have been rescheduled, removing reunions, parties and celebrations. And businesses are closed, which takes away all corporate and commercial work.

Oddly, I don’t, for a single second, care about the lost income.

What is essential, to paraphrase the famous, important, quote, is invisible to the eye. It is only with the heart that anyone can see clearly.

I tell no one, but I will confess here one time, and it takes a crisis to bring me to this point, that in a prior life I was a family law lawyer. I have hundreds of stories, but I share none. What I will say, however, is that I learned quickly the value of legacy. The value of life. The value of death. And dying. And of being prepared to die.

Prepare to die.

Have your life in order to the extent that your final breath, while sad to those who love you, doesn’t bring with it uncertainty and chaos and confusion and needless time sorting through your accumulated things.

Die well.

Die with peace.

Die with grace.

But, for the purposes of a simple blog post, die as a testament to how you want your all-too-brief time on earth to have been lived, and, in conjunction, how you would like to be remembered.

I’ve decided, in response to current events, to offer a daily moment of beauty to family, friends, clients and others who may be interested.

Posting weekly updates on my business seems a bit clumsy in today’s climate. There are vastly more important matters for everyone to consider and resolve.

I’m going to offer something simple, small, fluid — perhaps 100 pictures over 100 days — to give people a moment to pause, sigh, look back, look forward, appreciate and, hopefully, feel a split-second of gratitude in their day.

If you’d like to follow my posts, go to either my business Facebook page (Jeff Norris Photography) or my personal Facebook page (Jeff Norris). I may put them on Instagram, as well (Jeff Norris Photography). The links are also available on this website.

I’ll likely continue my blog posts here, too, but entirely separate from the 100 photos in 100 days project.

Peace and good health to each of you. I’ll look forward to photographing your stories on the other side.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.

F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Remember, Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

Stephen King

The Shawshank Redemption

That moment when you’re at an 80’s theme party and Sonny and Cher walk into the room….

They say we’re young and we don’t know

We won’t find out until we grow

Well I don’t know if all that’s true

‘Cause you got me, and baby I got you.