Surprise Inspiration

As sometimes happens, I sit at the computer and I start this domino chain of wandering that most of the time ends nowhere. I hop from site to site, either on a whim, or from a connection made from that site. I do not leave the chair more enlightened or happier or richer or satisfied. In fact, I usually end up leaving annoyed that I wasted a few hours of my time aimlessly surfing.

But sometimes, I visit my favorite sites and there's a little link I end up following that leads me to another - and before I know it - I feel like I was guided there by some force trying to help me improve. Although most of the time I do not know it at the moment. But sometimes I do - that the site I just "accidentally" landed on is something that will change my life forever in some way, large or small.

I started writing a post this morning, somewhat related to this - about how I found another of my favorite photographers, Carla Ten Eyck. She has become my greatest inspiration over the last few years in photography and I found her quite by accident. :) The post is about lens flare (which I will explain about in the post!), and that being the reason I found her, since I was searching the web back then about what this phenomenon was and just how the heck did one go about doing it! No one knew. It was something lots of people did capture, others wanted to try and capture, but no one really knew how they did it... and then she went and just happened to have a little tutorial right around the same time on her old site about how she does it. Voila! Instant Connection. :)

But anyway, that post is going to have to wait for another day, since today became a wandering day - with sick kids and therapies and such, there were so many distractions today! It was just not panning out as a working day. So, quickly sitting down, trying to find answers for something food and health related, I somehow ended up back on photography stuff - stepped through many sites and ended up here, on Karen Stott's Pursuit 31 page, with this quote that I just needed to hear today. Her story deeply resonated with me and her workshop is something I could really use right now, and it's good timing that I ended up there - accidentally. Huh. :)

This quote comes at your fear from a different angle than most inspirational quotes you hear, I think that's why I liked it so much:


"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." - Marianne Williamson

Like I have said before, you just never know when inspiration, motivation and connections will be placed in your path, just when you need them most. :)

A little lens flare preview for tomorrow's post:

Just Get The Pictures

When my kids were babies, I knew that I wanted professional pictures of them in super cute poses, but it was just not in the budget. I left my job to stay home with them full-time, so sometimes food wasn't in the budget. lol :) I trolled the Internet during that magic time when they were asleep, in between feeding them - this was after we had a system down of feeding the babies all at once by ourselves, and we were treated to about 45 minutes of free time in between bottles, ha!). :) This was when I became familiar with modern photography studios and that there was something else out there other than JC Penneys.

I fell in love with the natural light (no extra light, just light coming from windows), modern, clean-lined look of all the newborn sessions I was seeing and I thought, what am I losing by trying to recreate what I am seeing with my camera? So, with my trusty little point-and-shoot camera - a little Canon Power Shot - I started doing little monthly photo shoots with them at 2 months old.

If you are at all interested in taking pictures - and who the heck isn't? - or else we all wouldn't have cameras and cell phones with cameras embedded in them - a Google Image search for the subject you want to capture is a great way to find inspiration. Now, just to say it - there is a fine line between emulating someone's work and recreating your own angle of their idea to springboard from - and downright copying things and claiming them as your own, but really - getting pose ideas from other photographers is a great way to start looking at things in ways you might not have seen for yourself.

Many people look to professionals for things they think they cannot do for themselves, but never end up getting anything done due to schedule or money constraints. Even if we had the money when the triplets were born, I am sure as heck that we didn't have the presence of mind to get pictures done. I know it happens, and yes I am jealous! lol - But we weren't even close to that happy place right after we had our guys. :)

So, all I am saying is - if you want the pictures and you can't go out and have someone do them for you - don't be afraid of your own camera! It's something worth trying, because, honestly, even if they don't turn out the way you hoped/imagined - I guarantee they will be some of your favorite pictures - most of all, because they will have gotten done. Getting them done by yourself is getting them done, even if they aren't as good as a pro. Trust me on this one! It's also a fun/funny memory for you in the future, remembering all you go through to get it done. A hindsight tip for laughs and kicks - videotape yourself doing this, it will be an incredibly funny memory to have.

But also, don't be afraid of getting something different than you imagined. Sometimes you hold on so tightly to that perfect shot that you almost miss something just as good.

Case in point:

I found this photographer's picture of a head shot of twins, one in a green crochet hat and the other in a blue one laying in opposite directions. I wish I could find it to show you, but I looked forever with no success, darn-it! Anyway, it was shot straight down, directly over them, both boys looking clear-eyed into the camera. White onesies, black background. Super cute and modern, no distractions. I looked at that picture every day, longingly, for a week until I got the idea of trying it for myself. I had my little point and shoot camera, and all the ingredients, so I thought - what the heck? The kids were just shy of 6 months old, needing their next monthly picture and I was feeling brave.

So, one bright morning, I dressed them all in whatever white onesies I could find, positioned them by the biggest window we have, on the floor - on my black t-shirt - all opposite heads with Alex in the middle and had the hats to the ready. I stood back and realized they all looked so cute just like that, so I took a few of them and was excited that I'd have bonus shots. :)

Well, what I didn't know at the time was that babies tend to get sensory overload very easily, and a textured hat on their usually bare head was something that sent them all over the edge immediately. I put them on fast, and before I had the 3rd one on, the 1st was screaming bloody murder. Ack! I tried to settle them, but to no avail... gave up after a few minutes of torturing them, lol, and decided to snap this picture anyway, for posterity:

Imagine my relief afterwards, when I realized that even though it wasn't what I imagined or wanted so badly, I still had something I would treasure forever - plus! - I had the shot I had just taken moments earlier. This turned out to be one of my favorite pictures ever of the kids (same shot as above, I just rotated it because I thought it had more effect):

Oh, sure - looking at it now with photographer goggles, I think about the fact that it isn't completely sharp, that their baby acne, scratches and eczema are prominent, that their heads may not be perfectly in line... but looking at it as their mommy... I don't care a fig about those things at all. I love it, period.

So, take it from a professional photographer, who also happens to be a perfectionist, if you can't do something with a pro, you are the next best thing - so, be adventurous! Use your little camera and your black t-shirt. :) Turn off your flash and hold your hand steady - lean against something if you have to. Start with your inspiration images, but go with the flow. And I promise you will love them - not just because something is always better than nothing (which it definitely is!), but because it's all about making and preserving a memory of your own kids that you will never regret having, blurry or not.

Brushing Your Teeth

I do brush my teeth. Well, at least I try to every day... though, I do admit sheepishly that there are some days it just falls off the agenda and it happens right before bed.... or the next morning... :) But anyway, ahem! - today's post is not a tutorial on hygiene, but highlights something I read a few weeks ago about brushing your teeth - more specifically what you think about when doing this mundane, everyday (supposedly, lol) task.

What do you think about? Oh, yes, there are many days I'm doing it as fast as possible to get the kids out the door and to school on time, so those days, I admit - I think about where my keys are, I wonder if I should have scraped the ice off the windows already, or if I remembered to pack a snack with their lunch.

But most days... most days I think about how to capture that light flare a little dreamier, or bokeh a little blurrier, what cute family I could persuade to have a session on the beach or which post processing actions I should splurge for. I wonder about the calibration of the color on my monitor and think about owning a sweet 28mm 1.4 lens someday. I resolve to make it a priority to capture a few more doggies soon, and I ponder the idea of going back to "redo" my wedding pictures with a boatload of textures.

Yes, you may have guessed it, but I am little obsessed with photography.

This article here is what confirmed it for me... I guess I am probably on the right path. It's a pretty great article, you should go read it now! And then come back. :) The message is simple, and what I have eluded to before. Whatever you end up thinking about when you are brushing your teeth (and not rushed!), is arguably, a passion. Ok, so sometimes I think about Brad Pitt, and yes - he could be considered a passion of sorts, but really - the "what you would rather be doing with your time" (ok, will you just get Brad Pitt out of your mind already!) is what I am trying to stay focused on. :) This picture I found on Pinterest is another way to say it:

And I can't think of a better mind-wondering time than when you are attending to the pearly whites.

The bulk of the article I linked to above is more to the opposite point. She was in research, and her mind wandered to photography every morning. It was then that she knew her path! Or at least knew that the path she was on wasn't quite right...

I used to work for a defense contractor. And they were an awesome company to work for. Every area had "teams" and we would work hard together to identify problems and opportunities for increased efficiency and tackle them in an organized manner. We would have weekly meetings, setting aside our productivity time to work on making our workplace better. And at each meeting, there would be a facilitator, helping the team to get the most out of the meeting by keeping to our agenda, diffusing fights and forcing us to examine root causes, both in relationships and work mishaps. I loved the facilitator role, and I volunteered to become one. So, I went through the pre-requisite week-long training with others who wanted the same, and we had a great week learning many new skills.

During the week, we were shown various videos on how to help your teams be the most efficient and honest, to help pull out their talents and ideas and facilitate working through their issues, and to help solve problems effectively, etc... and some were more abstract in their point. One day, one of those videos was about DeWitt Jones, a National Geographic photographer. He talked about everyday creativity, and how, in his line of work, he had to look at things a while before the image he wanted to get - what was interesting him in the frame - came across to him. The point he was trying to make to us, in the manufacturing business was that every problem has a creative solution, if you take the time to look hard enough. Yeah. I got that.

But I also got the bug.

That night, I could not. stop. thinking. about. photography.

I'm sure it was not what the instructors (or my company, for that matter!) were hoping for when they played the video - me obsessing for weeks over the fact that becoming a photographer someday was starting to burn up inside me - it sounded so exciting and satisfying and artistic - which then, working for a technical company, sounded insanely exotic. But I was already on a "career path", with an amazing company - so I ignored this feeling, over and over. I kept telling myself it was silly and impractical (there's my dream crusher again!, lol). I tried to ignore this passion the video was stirring inside me... but for months afterward, every down time I had was spent thinking about how amazing that would be and consequently trying to shove it out of my mind. Oy!

Hindsight is 20/20, eh?

Another relevant Pinterest gem:

When your idle mind is happy, it's pointing at the things you should be occupying your life with the most. I beg you to listen harder than I did! :)