my view as a guest. and addie dancing with her cousin.

and more to come of this adorable chunky baby! this baby was my bff, i swear.

my husband is deploying to iraq in the fall and we had never had real family pictures taken.
i knew deb schwedhelm lived in kansas, but being the airhead that i am, i had NO idea how close she was. and now she is moving!
i had to get a session booked ASAP. i wanted to make jim a small book of all 4×6’s for deployment (much like we do as OpLove photographers.) because he always commented on what a great idea it was and how he would like to have something like that.

i can’t say enough amazing things about our experience, and about deb. she worked around my husbands crazy schedule, my crazy wedding session schedule, and booked us on fathers day. she was so nice through out the whole thing.
she did an amazing job picking the location and taking so much time with us to get the perfect light and the perfect portraits.
here are a few of my favorites (yes, she finished this already! can you say rock star?!). she was even nervous about my reaction to them. seriously? she is such a real person, i think i love her.
i am so happy we got this done. i can’t believe we waited so long to do this.

i never get tired of hearing ‘mama’. i loathe the thought of the day when my kids are too big and just call me ‘mom’.

Email me your pictures by 10pm EST tomorrow, June 12. rachael@goodytwoshoesphotography.com. I am not giving you a topic, because, well, I couldn’t think of one. I am just looking for something that pushes the limit. Something that is different from what you normally do, but still has YOU in it. I will be looking at your blog and or website.
I will pick the top 5-10 pictures that I love, then I will have a public voting in comment form on my blog.
Easy and fun!
Try and shoot something that you would use that $25 gift card to Canvas on Demand for.
ANY one can enter. Have fun and don’t hurt yourself.

Oh, and here is a picture because I can’t stand to blog with out one. I give you, my two youngest brothers.

I love it. The sun was setting and she was trying to reach out and grab all light coming through the window.
she also has ET fingers.

Are you challenging yourself to break out of your normal and be a little different? Maybe I should have a contest….

-Tom Krause

i have been having a crisis of photography faith lately. in fact, i struggled with myself about this very blog post. i didn’t know if i should say what i have been feeling for so long publicly. (i don’t want my clients to think i am an inept photographer!)
there has to be someone else that feels like i do. and if there is just one other person and about i had made their day a little better by letting them know they aren’t the only one, then i did my job.

i am tired of getting ‘inspired’ by someone else and their work, whether i mean to or not. i am tried of feeling like a sub par (at best) photographer. i am tired of looking at another photographers work and longing that i could only be 1/2 that talented.
i am tired of swimming in the sea of same.

before i looked at other blogs, joined photography websites etc, i was a horrible photographer. i didn’t know how to use photoshop and i had no idea about most of the general things.

but.

i loved it. i took 100 pictures of my kids a day and i just thought it was fabulous. i was learning. i was loving.
some where between there and here, i started hating everything i did. nothing was good enough. it didn’t look like XYZ’s pictures. i had to get certain props, wood floors, do “THE” pose, get it all right. do what everyone else was doing.
sure i got the great job compliments, the happy clients, the pretty pictures. but i am not happy. i feel so uncreative and void of all emotion toward photography. i don’t like my own work.
can you imagine? i used to love this! and sure, i know what i am doing, i am confident in my abilities, but not in my creativity, i have been ignoring the “me” in my work. just doing the “sameness” is easier. i know how to do it. people like it. why move on?

and those horrible pictures i used to take? they were more full of emotion and love for photography than what i do now.

i am on a mission to find that girl. that one that loved photography so much and took interesting, albeit technically horrible pictures.
i am challenging myself (and you!) to unplug from the photography world for a while. don’t stalk the websites, the blogs, the forums. don’t run out to tjmaxx and get the latest cute chair or blanket. if you feel the same way, take at least one picture a day and post it to your blog. something that is totally different than what you normally do.
be you. find yourself.
i am desperate to find myself in my work.

of course no blog is complete without pictures. so there you go, some of little charlotte. she is a HAM.

No, not the cute baby. The highchair! I have been looking for one for such a long time. I can’t tell you how excited I was win I won it. Pouring rain, hail and all!

Baby Kali happily modeled the chair for me, isn’t she cute?!

Check in tomorrow for a super cute shoot with some super cute kids!!

She was unimpressed. I think she knows they are weeds and not flowers.