Barbara and Jim
Colorado Springs
September 7, 2009
This is Jim with Barbara, his wife of 47 years. Jim has recently been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and given only a few weeks to live. I was truly honored to be asked by their daughter, Linda, to take their family’s portraits. It was a joy to meet this loving family and to hear the stories of their happy times together. Thank you so much, Jim, Barbara, Linda, and Eric. I’ll be thinking about you for years to come, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to meet you and learn from your appreciation for life.
My father was also recently diagnosed with lung cancer, coming from the world of photography I truly respect how much these photos must mean to the family and hope that my family will have a chance to do the same. I’m with everyone else, the last photo shows the raw emotion of this time in their lives and made me tear up as well. Thank you for what you do for families like this one, it is truly an honor to be part of the photography community when there are awesome photographers like yourself that I get to call colleagues and friends.
Beautiful
Oh Charlotte, these pictures are beautiful. And I just bawled my eyes out looking at them.
Caitlin
I hope Jim beats the odds and lives for at least a few more years.
Certainly until he and Barbara can celebrate their 50th anniversary!
And I hope you and Mike will photograph their 50th anniversary celebration.
Oh, my. The last one made me get chills.
Oh, my. The last one made me get chills.
wow…beautiful. The last one….just so hauntingly beautiful.
Oh my, this is such a touching set of portraits. And like most everyone else has said, the last one is just so raw, it brought a lump to my throat.
These are beautiful. My heart breaks for them. I teared up just looking at these.
What beautiful portraits!
Brilliant photos.
And I’m impressed the family made it through it without tears in their eyes…when my family were getting family portraits done for their church–about five months after my mom had a bone marrow transplant for leukemia–my dad became a bubbling mess when talking to the photographer about it and it’s very clear in our photo! 😉
I want to hug you for capturing these moments for them so beautifully. It takes a great eye to capture the love, hope, and sadness in such a difficult situation and in these photos alone I can tell that you did Jim and his family justice. Speaking as a family member of cancer victims and survivors these photos are invaluable and beautiful. Thank you.
Hey 🙂
Well we have good taste.
Wow, Charlotte. You did an amazing job. That is so special that they chose you to take their last family portraits. You’re pictures will be the ones they remember and cherish for the rest of their lives.
I hope all his moments left with his family are happy ones.
oops, I meant *sparkle
I agree! He has such a sparking in his eye…what beautiful pics as always.
Wow, Charlotte. You did an amazing job. That is so special that they chose you to take their last family portraits. You’re pictures will be the ones they remember and cherish for the rest of their lives.
I hope all his moments left with his family are happy ones.
oops, I meant *sparkle
I agree! He has such a sparking in his eye…what beautiful pics as always.
Even though Jim’s terminally ill, what really struck me is that his eyes still have a lot of fight left in them.
Thanks for capturing that.
Beautiful photos at such a tough time in their lives.
yup, I was doing just fine. Just being happy that you were able to gift them with these and then the last one, I’m not sure..why but it just brought the tears on. ♥ Beautiful pictures, Beautiful family. God bless them.
Is it weird of me to imagine one of these portaits in that nice space above their fire place? 🙂
Nice job. What a brilliant idea.
Hey you! I love when I find out we have friends/communities in common. heh.
And I agree…that last one is powerful.
That is a very good idea to get some professional pictures of the family taken before someone passes away. I wish we’d done that with my grandpa before he died. And you captured the moments so well.
Is it weird of me to imagine one of these portaits in that nice space above their fire place? 🙂
Nice job. What a brilliant idea.
Hey you! I love when I find out we have friends/communities in common. heh.
And I agree…that last one is powerful.
I agree with everyone else, the last shot is what made me cry. Gorgeous photos though, and I’m so glad the family did this. I think that’s wonderful.
That last picture is heart wrenching. I hope that this helps them to have some memories to hold on too.
Beautiful, Charlotte. That last one is especially touching. Family treasures, to be sure.
How very sad. 🙁 But hopefully they will have a good last memory out of this photo session…
That last one…. *cries*
Oh that last shot made me tear up.
These are touching. The last one especially.
So sad that he doesn’t have much time to live. 🙁
That last one…. *cries*
Oh, Charlotte. These are wonderful. His wife and family just break my heart.