Amy Koontz Knippel

A Photo at Anytime

2011-09-29T09:31:00.001-07:00

When I actual remember to bring a camera, I still sometimes need to remember that pictures can be taken even when they are not dressed up and when there is a very low interesting visual activity. Pulling braches around and painting seem pretty actionless, but I need to remember to stay open to capturing images at anytime and make the best of what there is.

2010-08-15T19:16:00.000-07:00

There are little moments that are just perfect. When the lighting and the composition all come together perfectly. And it is nice to be a part of that moment and know that without you, there would be no perfect moment. No matter how bad you think that you are doing things, it looks like everything is just fine. I see that our bigger intention of love and support and fun shines brighter than the huge mistakes that you think you are making. I hope that the memories that my children have encompass more of the love and less of the pain and anger. Love and Light always.

2009-10-10T20:15:00.000-07:00

Just pure love I feel looking at pictures of my babies. They are my best creation...I cannot even touch anything that I make by hand or capture in my lens. And it is of my greatest joy that I get to document these children that I got to bring into the world. And I am learning so much. Each one teaches me something new and I am so thankful. My life's purpose is to show the beauty of being on the planet and my children fill my heart with this knowledge everyday.

At one month

2009-06-15T19:29:00.000-07:00

So for each of my three baby boys, I tried to document at which moment they changed and looked different. Do things happen from day to day, week to week, or what. I decided to photograph them in a "formal" portrait once a month for a year.

These images of my boys I find are the most important work I have created. They are closest to my heart and I create them solely for me. Yes, I appreciate the awards and parties and compliments of other bodies of work, but it is this work that completes my personal mission: To show the beauty of being on the planet.

Anyhow, the portraits show how each child changed each month and showcased what developmental stage they were at. In the first month portrait, here, baby Andrew now focuses on your eyes and face and can turn his head to focus on people talking to him or music playing and images or light areas. He smiled at four weeks, but only from time to time.

It is interesting as well, when I look at the baby images from years past, I do not see how tired I was, or stressed and overwhelmed at trying to manage the boys and house and schedule my husband kept as he went to school and worked, I just see how happy I am and they are and how wonderful everything looks. I hope the boys feel my good intentions as they look back at their life.
If I have hurt someone today in thought or word or deed, or failed another in his need, I now repent. If I could take those steps again, tomorrow I would make amends, and heal with love those hurts, I do now this request; If someone has hurt me deep, and no amends are made, I ask the Light to balance all, I count the debt as paid. Parental spirits whom I love and who I know love me, reach through the door I open wide, make clear my path to Thee.

2009-06-10T14:39:00.000-07:00

I cannot express enough how much I love being a photographer when I have babies. I am trying to imprint as many moments as I can, but it makes it easier when I have these images. I loved sitting down the other evening and lining up all three baby shots of each of the boys and looking at what parts of them looked like one another. As a mom who is always holding them or tending to them, it is nice to have the images, especially close to the time that things are happening, and seeing them from a different vantage point. I notice it as well when my husband is holding the baby and not me. But, oh, how lovely it is to hold them. You can feel their great energy pouring off of them as newbies. They are so closely related to Creator.

Water

2008-11-03T08:33:00.000-08:00

I remember as a kid I loved the water. I could play in it for hours. And I never ever noticed, or cared, how warm or cold the water was. We would fill balloons with water and chuck then at each other. Flop around in a baby pool in the backyard. Jump into a spring fed pool that was always under 70 degrees and not care if it were a cool May or hot August day. I cannot say that anymore now that I am an adult. When did this happen? I remember liking the water still in my early 20's, and I am an adult at that point. So at what moment to we turn into an adult and care if we get wet or what the water temperature is? And is there any reverse so I do not care about it anymore? I would love to be able to flop in the water like my kids do.

Change

2008-11-03T08:24:00.000-08:00

It is so wonderful and fun to have little ones to change your perspective. Since they have not experienced the things you have yet, it can seem different to us as well. What a wonderful way to look at the world.

I think photographers look at the world in another way as well. Always telling a story from one snap of an image and showing their original prospective. A great photographer is always evolving, transforming, and looking for different perspectives.

I look forward to shooting again in the years to come when my children are a little older. I think that I will surely have been influenced by how my children see things and hopefully it will transform my art form.

2008-08-18T16:40:00.000-07:00

I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to be blood related to someone. I waited many, many years to have this happen, since I was adopted at birth. While I am very thankful that I was surrendered to another family, I still can not imagine doing the same with any of my children. I am glad that it is something that happens so that families can have children who would not, otherwise, have them. There is so much involved in these kinds of events and it may take years, or lifetimes, to weed through all of the blocks and issues before healing happens. I knew from the early age of 13 that I could not give up a child even if I was too young. I thanks God this happened in adulthood, though.

This image was taken by my husband of me at a moment when it was hot and busy, but I like seeing images that show real life moments. The general public should have more of these moments taken of them. They are even more meaningful when the years have passed and everyone has done so much growing. And that gives me an idea of something else I should offer my photo clients!!!

Our History

2008-06-04T13:51:00.000-07:00

I have never been able to retain great amounts of specific information about history while in class. I do remember the saying how history repeats itself, and never fully understood it until I started doing personal growth work.

I have done time-line work where you chart all the moments that impressed your memory, positive, negative or otherwise, and map the events out on paper. What I notice is that after seven years of age, similar impressions re-occur over and over again until we understand them and clear them out. It sounds so easy, but because it is our self, it is rather hard to spot. Other people seem much easier to sort out their issues as we notice things, but we are not here to do their work. As I have worked on the issues, either through journaling, breath works, sweat lodges, body work, drawings, meditations, or anything else I can name, it is amazing how the memories really come alive as if I were living in that moment all over again. And if we do not heal these issues, we live as a slave to them.

We are able to create anything we want, through intention, within a short period, unless we hit blocks/issues. For instance, we repeat lack consciousness, losing jobs, working our butts off for little pay, never feeling like we get ahead, or whatever, until we get that we are in the drivers seat of our life and all of the "stuff" in our way can be overcome when we see that is not reality. And, some issues are "genetic inherited thought" (to coin my teacher, Renate Moore) where our thoughts are not too different from our parents, and their parents, and so on, for seven generations. So, you can even see this pattern in poverty; those brought up poor usually go on to be poor and raise their offspring with little money, and so on, until they realize that they deserve money and can have riches if they just start with the intention of prosperity consciousness.

Although there are many aids to release and clearing issues, the breath is the life source and connectiveness to Spirit. If we do not breathe, we do not live. Where there is little or no oxygen, there is dis-ease, or darkness, pain, lack, etc. A great exercise I have learned is to take ten breaths once a day, and see how things change. I use it when I feel pain in my body, and picture breathing right into the spot that hurts. It usually lessens the feeling if not goes away entirely. And since I feel I have come to the planet with a lot of emotional issues, when I breathe into the emotional pain, it comes up and then goes away. One intentional saying or mantra I use when I hit a block is as follows: From the point of origin, to the here and now present, and into the future I choose to release this issue of_________. I release, I release, I release, and I replace with love and rose quartz light. This has been very powerful for me and has moved mountains in my personal growth and healing.

And as I think of my history, that of my family, my community, my country, and cannot always recite the dates of things, I find it not so important to remember when something happened, rather that it happened. And how it repeats; wars, betrayals, etc. And how every time that has existed, at least on this planet, we have all looked up and seen the sun, moon, stars, and sky. Now, these things may have moved, grown, shifted, or changed in color; but it is interesting that the Great White Brotherhood from the time of Christ, or the Mayans, the Celtics, or the Greeks, all looked up and saw what I am looking at right now. It makes me feel that I am not alone in my evolution to a higher state of consciousness, and I am certainly not the first to have come and do this work for the planet.

Namaste

Just thinking

2008-05-14T19:00:00.000-07:00

I have two beautiful little boys who are turning 2 and 4 soon. I am very busy with them and have many tasks to do to help them grow. I have made them my priority. As well as my husband as he attends grad school. I would like to fit some photography in my life again here and there, as much as possible. So, I have committed to taking a point and shoot digital around with me, snapping the environment around me as I go. I am leaving behind the block of not having enough money to buy film and make prints. This new arena of shooting from digital camera direct to the energy screen is what I will display my new art form on. I am an artist and it is time to create in this new format. My purpose is to show the beauty of being here. So here I go.