Learning and growing

I have this need to see progress, even if it is baby steps,  I need to be moving forward. Learning and growing, it is what keeps me going.  Every small improvement keeps me hopeful.  Every thing that I can cross off my list as completed improves my mood.  I write a million and one to do lists,  sometimes I even add things I have already done, just so I can see something else crossed off on the list.  I know it is silly, but it feels good to have accomplished something and be able to see it.  I have been focusing on growing as a photographer a lot in the last couple of years.  Reading, research,  online courses, and a lot of experimentation, are some of the ways I have been working on improving my art.  Sometimes it is discouraging,  sometimes I feel like a total failure but then other times I get the shot that I had been envisioning, or I receive a compliment from someone who has been following my photographic journey about how much I have improved, and it feels good.  Enjoy the baby steps,  do not forget the positive and good things that happen on what can sometimes be a difficult journey.  This is what I try to remind myself of everyday.

This image I love. I am proud of it.  It is a leap and a jump above the newborn images I was taking a few years ago.  As I learn more about light,  and about my own style I am creating more and more images that I love.  I hope that I can continue to learn and grow, and my newborn images are even better the more I practice.  Even this entry is a small baby step. It is my 13th entry since I started posting again,  I have never in the 8 year history of this blog managed to do more than 12 in a year.  Progress, it is a good thing.

Keeping me humble

As probably everyone who knows me know. I love to take fotos.  I have my camera up way too often according to my very patient family.  However, being a portrait photographer is very different from being a landscape photographer, or even an event photographer.  I have no lack of inspiration when there is a person standing in front of my camera.  I can shoot for hours and never get bored or run out of ideas.  When I look at the gorgeous nature I am surrounded by,  I see it and I appreciate it, but somehow I just cannot manage to get it to translate into the images I attempt to capture.  It is funny, you would think that if someone is good with a camera, that is it, they are good, and can take images of anything.  However this is not true, not true at all.  So despite my total lack of a knack for landscape photography,  I still try.  It is a good way to keep me (very) humble, and I am learning,  albeit very slowly to improve my images.  So if there is something you are not good at, do not give up,  use it as a challenge to learn and grow, and if you are like me then, there will be a lot of room to grow!  Ha Ha,  if you cannot laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?  I leave you with one of my more recent attempts to capture the incredibly beauty mother nature provides. 

Shhh....Listen....

I believe that every artist (or very nearly every) has moments of self-doubt.  Am I good enough?  Are my creations of value?  Should I just give up?  These questions plague many of us,  and not just as artists, but as people.  Life is hard,  work is hard.  Sometimes it is hard to value ourselves.  I know I suffer greatly from self-doubt.  It was a huge jump for me to put myself out there and start my photography company,  to actually call myself a photographer.  I may not have looked like it, but I was shaking in my boots.  I often still do.  But this means I can only get better.  I try to look forward, not side to side.  Not try to compare myself to that amazing photographer over there, but rather to be inspired by them.  I try to put myself out there,  no matter how scary it is.  And well, if they do not value my work then I guess they will not hire me.  BUT as long as I value my work,  there will be people out there that value my work, and they will find me, or I will find them, and we will make beautiful images, together. 

Fairy Princess Improntu fotoshoot

I love photographing children, my own and any others willing to stand in front of my camera.  My kids are so used to me having a camera, and are basically sick of it.  LOL.  So it is a very rare occasion that they actually ask me to pull the camera out and capture whatever they are doing.  But this was one of those rare times.  One day our little pixie girl decided to dress up as a fairy princess, and was running about digging in the dirt and climbing on stones, as fairy princesses do.  I happened to walk by and she yells at me to go and get my camera.  My heart soared!  A child who wants to cooperate!  So of course I dropped everything.  The light was perfect, she was magic, and we had so much fun.  I love those spontaneous shoots, so i guess my tip for today, is always keep your camera nearby ( and charged) and if your child ever asks you to take their picture,  drop everything and enjoy it.  These moments will not last long, so that is why I love to preserve them.

Happy Duck, dirty knees

I love this image cause even though I realize ducks cannot smile.  It sure looks to me like that is exactly what this guy is doing.  He just looks so happy.  I am not so sure that he was considering there were a bunch of crazy kids running around, and then a crazy lady crawling up on the grass in front of him with this huge black thing coming out of her eye!  ( ha ha).  This image is the classic of how to take what could be a rather boring image and make it more interesting.  All I had to do was get down,  get way down, in the duck poo covered grass, but it was worth it.  I love teaching photography, and find it fun to give a student a single simple tip, and watch them run with it and improve their photography.  So I guess my tip for today is to get down.  Had I taken this shot straight on it would not have been nearly as interesting to look at.  New perspectives can do amazing things to help your images, especially when photographing animals or small humans( I am a child photographer, so I see a lot of them).  Get down to their level and see what you come up with! And yes, I end up doing a lot of laundry, but the kids love it when I get down and dirty with them.