One of the photos MaryAnne Hinkle has of her father, SFC Robert W. Forand, is a black and white of him seated at a cluttered dinner table in his dress greens.
It's an unremarkable shot. The lighting is bad. The contrast wanting. And toddler Hinkle, seated at the table with her parents, is the only one looking at the camera.
And yet that single moment represents one of Hinkle's most cherished childhood memories.
"Pictures are important," said Hinkle recently. "Even if there's not much going on in the shot artistically, photographs provide a historical memory from someone's life."
And they can provide a way for her to give back some of what she has been given, which is why Hinkle just about laughed out loud recently when she happened upon a website for Photos for Soldiers.
Hinkle, who comes from a long line of U.S. Army veterans, was looking for a way to both honor service men and women and show her appreciation for them.
"I wanted to give something to them for being America's guardians of freedom so we can continue to live in a free country which is not offered in other countries," she said.
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Before joining the volunteer ranks of Photos for Soldiers, Hinkle said she constantly sought ways to use her photographic skills to serve military men and women.
"When no one was taking me up on my offer, I started searching the Internet looking for organizations that offered an opportunity to photograph service men and women and their families," Hinkle said.
She found Photos for Soldiers, filled out an application and clicked the send button.
Two days later the organization's founder, Clare DeHaan responded.
"Her photos were just beautiful," said DeHaan of Hinkle's work.
She sent Hinkle an email welcoming her aboard.
Hinkle, a 46-year-old former teacher, has become part of a nationwide network of photographers, including two others in Georgia.
The effort began, DeHaan said, in January 2012 soon after she met a young mother in an online military support group.
When the woman mentioned that her husband hadn't yet seen their six-month-old daughter, DeHaan, who regularly sent photos to her son in Afghanistan, offered to take pictures of the infant free of charge and send them to the baby's father.
The mother told a friend of hers, whose husband had also been deployed and, DeHaan said, "It just took off from there."
Hinkle got her first assignment last month to photograph the sister of a deployed soldier and her family.
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Hinkle fell in love with the power to freeze time while on a hike through the woods with her sister Betty Forand, who was on leave from her duties as a medic in the U.S. Army.
"If you race through life, you're going to miss the beauty in it," Hinkle remembered her sister telling her.
She slowed down and with her sister's camera took her first photograph of a monarch butterfly.
"That was it for me," Hinkle said.
She was 10-years-old. More than 30 years later, photography is still it for Hinkle, who estimates she has taken thousands of photos since that day. Some are in albums tucked away in crates. Some are stored on her computer.
Last week, she was looking forward to her first assignment with Photos for Soldiers, a session with Jessica Ivey, her husband Domonick and their two sons, Domonick, Jr. and Daemyn, all of Conyers.
Jessica Ivey contacted Photos for Soldiers after reading in the Newton Citizen about Hinkle's efforts to find military families to photograph.
Ivey said that even though her brother, 1st Lt. Earl Porter, of the Army Rangers, has been in Afghanistan since March, he's always doing things to brighten her day.
"He eats, breathes and sleeps the military, but he loves his family," Ivey said. "Just last week he sent me an edible fruit arrangement. I know this will brighten his day and remind him of home."
Ivey said she has been impressed with Hinkle's professionalism.
"Even though she's volunteering, she's actually taken the time to get to know my family so she gets the best possible photo," Ivey said. "It lets me know there are still some really nice people out there."
Having their photo, she said, will be a gift to both her and her brother.
"It's something we can do and enjoy and something I know he will enjoy, too," she said.
Photos For Soldiers is a non-profit that captures special moments - a baby's first steps, weddings and welcoming embraces -- of deployed military men and women and their families. Families receive, free of charge, a photo package of 10 -- 4-by-6 prints and a digital CD of the prints with full print release. For more information or to have your family's photograph taken, log onto www.photosforsoldiers.com.
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