The Martinez Family Vlog
So. Why the Vlog? Why has this become such a passion or highlight for me throughout the year?
The Martinez Family
Follow along with our family adventures as I navigate this thing called fatherhood with the best family a man could ever ask for.
www.youtube.com
It started about ten years ago when my wife Catelin had convinced me to buy a DSLR camera to pursue an interest in photography. This hobby quickly exploded into a passion! I’d take the camera everywhere to document life. Parties? Get the camera! Going on a trip? Bring the camera and the spare battery. Got some down time? Let’s fine tune some of those photography skills. I still pursue photography on the side, but that’s where the idea of documenting a slice of life had begun. The candid moments that would be lost to memory and time. That’s the beginning.
YouTube had begun blowing up around that time as well, and in a late-night deep dive on YouTube, I had found a video from the Shaytards family. I browsed lightly, but there were two videos that had jumped out to me immediately that I had returned to a number of times. The first was when they were having a baby. This was the first vlog I’ve ever seen, and the concept blew me away. This was a slice of real-life that a photograph could never quite capture. Not only did we anticipate their baby, but we LIVED THAT MOMENT with them. The waiting in the hospital. The family coming to visit. The baby’s birth, and the flood of love afterwards.
Their second video that had captivated me even more was their Christmas Eve and Day vlog. I had grown up with my parents taking home video of our Christmas mornings, and I always loved going back to watch my brother and me opening presents Christmas morning. This, though? To see a family actively vlogging their highlights from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day all together? It was inspiring, but it was also accessible; I could do that when I started a family.
The clincher, though, was that my parents had video taped our Christmas is mornings when my brother and I were growing up. I always loved going back to watch those at all times throughout the year. Younger Austin would watch those videos to see the presents. Teeenage Austin would get a kick out of seeing his somewhat younger parents interact. Now? I watch them to see my own simpler times. I’ll watch to see the old sofa we spent countless hours watching countless TV shows and movies on, which is now lost to time. I’ll watch to see old commercials on TV that live somewhere in my memory but don’t exist anymore. I’ll watch to see the weather at the time, to see my parents interact and talk to each other, to see old place settings, the 1989 box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and any other minutia that all adds up to the intangible.
And this idea, along with the Shaytards’ vlogs and photography, inspired me to begin documenting my own family and children. It’s been bumpy, awkward, unsure, and strange at times, but now I can look back to what life was like 7 years ago (and when my daughter was born), and this is something that I want my children and family to have as we all grow older.
It’s not about subscribers or view numbers, though that’s always a perk. It’s about a keepsake for my family. Anyway, if you’ve made it this far, thank you for following along or reading.