Seeing the "Trees": A Picture in a Picture

The phrase "can't see the forest for the trees," is usually used when someone pays such close attention to the details that they can't see the bigger picture.  I wish I could say it's never been said about me, but if I'm being honest I often get stuck in the details.  When my boss used to give me training materials to review, she'd say something like "please, please don't focus on the punctuation, grammar and page layout... I just need you to review the content."  But you see, I can't help but get completely caught up in those things.  If there's an extra space between words it rips me right out of the thought being conveyed!

There's at least one place this has come in handy, however.  A couple years ago I was printing off some pictures of our family to put in frames around the house as a Father's Day gift for my husband.  We're not ones to take professional pictures, so I was finding it hard to dig up good ones of him and the kids.  Never mind the fact that my children will not sit still or look in the general direction of a camera, which made the task at hand nearly impossible.  It was only when I started looking at the "trees" that I found some gems I could frame.

I'd written off this first picture since no one was looking at the camera and my husband had to tickle our son to get him to smile (seriously, the rest of the pictures he's completely stone-faced). 

But by cropping everything else out I realized a precious moment was captured.

The same thing is true of the second set of photos here--I wasn't about to frame a picture of my son and the dishwasher, but crop down to his face and a moment of pure joy was memorialized.

All that to say, sometimes great things can be found in the details.  Keep your eyes peeled and you may just find a few worth framing!