Mom’s have this great ability to take care of others. We often are running around wiping noses, making dinner, doing chores, running errands, and generally just going all the time. During all of this hustle and bustle its easy to lose ourselves, or forget to work in time to “feed” ourselves. Everyone has something, or multiple things that bring them joy and peace. For some it’s reading, or sports, or simply being outdoors. Whatever it is, we all try to make time for it in our lives to stay mentally healthy and happy.
My personal joy is art. Specifically photography.
Photography has always been my art outlet of choice. I have loved all things creative since I was very young, but photography is more my strength. (You don’t want to see me draw!) Art is like therapy to me. It makes me happy to create images, and it also allows me to dream up ways to express feelings and thoughts through images. Sometimes my photography is “deep” in meaning, and sometimes I’m just being goofy and having fun capturing those that I love.
No of course my faith, family, and friends all bring me great joy, but my photography is my form of self-care. Some people like to get spa treatments, some people want nights out on the town, or vacations. I want to create, so I do. As much as I can. I have learned from experience how depressed I can get when I let photography take a FAR back seat to everything else in life. I don’t like the person I become to those I love when that happens, so I take a lot of photos.
The Perfect Project for Me
When I had my first kiddo I had an instant live in model. And he was super cute! (Still is!) Creating a baby book for him was my creative/photography outlet. My husband rolls his eyes at my giant baby books (and I even restrain myself a tad), but it’s my outlet and joy. Motherhood has also brought on a desire to document our family. Not in a vain way, but in a memory type of way. Life can be amazing, rough, long, and short all at once.
I love being able to look back at photos that tell our family story and that my kids can have it later. It would be amazing to have such an album of my own family from years ago. I want to make sure my kids have that. That desire has also caused me to make sure I get in FRONT of the camera more…and capture my family more as well, even if I know they aren’t huge fans of being in photos. I know what it’s like to lose family and wish I had more photos and reminders of our time together. I want my kids to see how much their family has always loved them and spent time with them!
Snap, Snap, Snap
For those reasons and more I take lots of photos of my kids. I create themed photoshoots for them that makes my husband question my sanity, and I’ve recently started photographing my sister-in-law…because why haven’t I been taking advantage of a model that I already enjoy hanging out with?!?!
So just know, I will probably start sharing those sessions more on here. I might share some behind the scenes details as well. My mother was always curious how I got such great shots of the boys until she was present for a session and saw just how badly they can go. You just run with it and usually there’s still some great captures!
For now, here’s some of the ones from Little Man’s first year. I’ve gotten better with time, because kids are not my strength, but I’m learning and growing the more I try.
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