Back to Basics

The other day I decided to do something I felt like I hadn’t done in FOREVER.  I took my oldest daughter out and we took pictures of just her and only HER.  The past few months, well, really since at least June have been a bit of a blur for me.  I think when you live the life of a photographer you just come to know that when the weather gets nice…you’re pretty much going to be non stop busy until Christmas.  I have literally been on autopilot this whole time, engagement session today, family session tomorrow, pack for a wedding on the weekend, scout out locations for wedding, photograph wedding, scout out locations for next session, pick up equipment, order product, edit, burn a disc, answer emails…sometimes when all is said and done (and I feel absolutely AWFUL saying this) it seems that kiddos and hubby get put on the back burner during these months.. The past few weeks since our last child was born have been a real eye opener for me.  Apparently, I am NOT superwoman.  The night we came home from the hospital after having our third daughter 3 weeks ago, my husband had to rush my almost 3 yr old daughter up to the hospital with a case of Croup.  The poor girl could barely breathe:(…then inevitably, a few days later my oldest daughter got sick (though thankfully it never developed into croup)…then about a day after that my husband caught a case of food poisoning, and then as hard as we tried to fight against it, our newborn got sick.  And let me tell you, it was scary when my almost 3 yr old couldn’t breathe, but it was absolutely TERRIFYING when my newborn was having problems breathing…I honestly don’t think I’ve ever prayed so hard in my life.  Thankfully, after a couple of days our baby was back to normal and our other two kiddos were on the mend.  Those couple of weeks really showed me that I cannot make myself so busy while trying to have a family at the same time.

Anyways, back to the beginning of my story: So, I decided to take my daughter out – not for long, I just wanted to grab some shots of her.  But I wanted it to be different than what normally happens when I take pictures of my children.  Usually, when I take my children out it’s the same as always, “Look HERE! NO LOOK AT ME!!!” and either I get a snarky, whiny, “WHAT? WHYYYY???” or I get the fakest smile you could possibly imagine lol.

Lately, I’ve felt like I’ve had a total photographers block (I totally know how authors feel haha)..I’ve been doing the same routine in and out…and I needed to remind myself why I got into this in the first place.  I want my photos to speak to myself and others and not be “just another photo”.  So when I took my daughter out I had a clear goal in mind “just let her do her thing and be herself”.