There is a struggle I deal with while being a photographer
and a mother. I capture such beautiful
moments of my children, and...get ready for this...delete them!!! Yes, I delete memorable moments of my
kids...why??!! Because I forget to look
at them with my mom eyes instead of my photographer eyes. I see poor composition, blur, grain, poor
lighting. But here is the good news...TODAY,
I caught myself!! I was culling through
some images of the kids just being kids at the house, and as I zoomed in
on one of them, I almost hit delete because of its lack of being tack sharp among
other things, but just then I was summoned away by two precious angels fighting over something so ridiculous that no one could recall what the argument was even about now if I was to ask them.;) When I returned ready to pick up where I had
left off, I stopped and stared at my screen and found myself smiling with pride
and love for my three beautiful girls.
My first desire in life was to always be a wife and a mom. Well I have been blessed with both. We will be celebrating 16 years on Friday and
we have 5 beautiful, talented, healthy, funny, challenging, always hungry
kids;) LIFE. IS. GOOD. But I believe that God is so gracious and
loving and has gifted each of us in many areas of our life. Along with always wanting to have a family I
have longed to be photographer. There is
just something about seeing life through a lens…. (sounds corny…I know). For real though, it’s a great gift and I feel
honored to carry the title of a photographer.
Okay, done with the mushy stuff…back to what I was
talking about. There is this part of
photography that can consume you. It’s
the perfectionist. In the photography
world, we as photographers see little things that make us cringed, and so we make an educated an artful decision that the image is RUINED as we quickly delete the embarrassing thing staring at us on our screen, erasing every
ounce of proof that we are not perfect. Please tell me I'm not alone! ;) When, if I was to show the image to the client
all they would see is the love, the emotion, the connection they have with
their children and their spouse. Or that unforgettable moment of their special
day. Memories that can never be replaced
or redone.
MIDDLE OF BLOG DISCLAIMER!! I here all the photographers out there screaming at me!
This isn't a license to
give your clients crappy, poor quality images.
Of course we strive and work hard to guarantee that our clients will end
up with professional quality keepsakes. I've spent hours learning my equipment like the back of my hand. I make sure I give my clients a beautiful return from their investment. But I'm human! And not all my images from a session end up in the finished gallery. Nor should they! We choose the best! These are other peoples memories for goodness sake!! Exactly...they're other peoples memories...not just OUR art!
So what am I trying to say? Give them every image, even if it's so blurry and you can't tell if that's little Joey hugging brother Tommy or sister Suzy....forget it...I'd rather poke my eyes out with a fork!!!!
This is simply a challenge to look at the work with different eyes. To remind yourself why we all fell in love with photography to begin with. And not
just post production either. Let life
happen at a session. RELAX…let go of
your Pinterest board of saved poses (I have a huge one ;)) Make time in the scheduled session to just capture what’s happening. And when your culling your images and you
happen to run across one that’s not perfect through your photographer eyes, don’t immediately toss it. Put it in its
own little file and revisit it later after all you perfect images are selected.
Now this is probably not a popular attitude
among photographers, but for me I've decided not to be so delete happy. I love what I do, and I don’t want to forget why I do it. I'm going to savor the moments and the
beautiful images they produce.
So here is one that was staring into gates of the famous
delete trash can on my PC. All I see is
my girls and their love for one another….I refuse to zoom in.....LOL;)
Much Love,
Chariese
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