MomShots

I would like to hear your opinion on an issue that is currently being discussed on one of the online Mom communities I belong to.  In this community there are a few photography related groups that I subscribe to and participate in occasionally.  

Pretty frequently there are challenges where everyone can submit a photo relating to a theme and people can submit a photo and then everyone votes on them.  Last week there was a challenge called “New”.  That’s pretty open to interpretation but a lot of the women put up photos of newborn babies.  It is a mom’s group afterall…

I didn’t do a newborn, I did the photo of Uly in the red hat that is in two posts back.  It was a new hat.  It fit.

Anyway, one member wrote up a post that talked about how she was kind of unimpressed with everyone’s lack of creativity in not only this mini-contest but in many others.  She talked about how most everyone just copied the idea from the example photo and did not come up with their own idea.  The post was intended to motivate the readers to think out side the box and encourage everyone to try to be creative and think of their own ideas.

I replied with a comment that went like this:

One of the ways that an artist starts out learning how to draw or paint is to copy or trace someone else’s original work. It isn’t done in the spirit of plagiarism or unoriginal thought, it is done to learn how make the correct pen or brush strokes and how to learn control and composition.

 

I think copying some one else’s ideas for photography is one way in which we learn to be better photographers. So many of the people in these groups are just barely starting out and learning how to use a camera. While that doesn’t necessarily mean that we need to directly copy and not think of original ideas, it is where a lot of these group members are in their development.

 

Maybe we need to encourage discussions about finding inspiration or thinking outside of the box. Perhaps that is what many of these people need in order to grow as photographers. I know I could always use ideas or ways to think more creatively and develop my own style and original eye for composition. I want desperately to develop my photographic abilities to a level where I feel like I can say that I am an artist. It is an art form that I really want to experience and truly understand.

So I think you can understand what I am saying.  I am saying it isn’t always bad to copy an idea.  In fact, in my podcast interview with Kiera Haddock she mentions getting ideas and mutating them into your own.  I mean, it’s 2009, humanity has been around for a while.  Do you actually think every single thought you have is completely original?  

Personally, I don’t.  Maybe I’m being cynical.

Anyway, I was wondering what you think about this.  Do you find inspiration from other’s work?  Do you find a cool photo in Flickr and try to shoot a similar image so you can learn from it?  Or do you completely abstain from viewing other people’s images so that you are only doing original work?  

Personally, I’m a copier.  Or at least I am in the sense that I get ideas for shots and try to learn from them.  I am not likely to be one of the newborn-baby-photo-posting-people.  I like to submit my own idea for contests, if I have them.  

I am not opposed to learning from others ideas.

And you know I can’t leave a post, especially a long post without a photo.  Uly’s birthday is on Friday.  Can you guess how old he will be?

Wasn’t that a cool post by Anne?!?  I had so much fun reading it and thinking about the ones that aren’t going to make it into the final running of my Christmas cards and photos.  Please share your Christmas or Holiday ideas with us.  Leave a comment and let us know what ideas you are pursueing, leave a link, whatever you feel comfortable with but please share.  

I, personally, am in much need of inspiration lately.  I have been going a million miles a minute for the past few weeks and not getting enough sleep.  Consequently my creative wells are feeling a bit low.  I enjoyed looking at the links Anne shared so much.  I hope to see what you are doing this year as well.

This leads me into our AWESOME Tip of the Week - I is for Inspiration.  I was so thrilled to read Tye’s latest creation that I could hardly contain myself.  What a great Tip!!!!  Like I said above, I have been feeling a bit brain dead lately and so these ideas and thoughts about Inspiration are like a breath of fresh air.  I really am looking forward to checking out the links that Tye provided and coming up with some new ideas too! 

And finally, because Momshots is all about photographing our children, I have to share with you just how sweet my 4 year old is.  He is learning to read and write and this morning he wrote this special birthday note to me:

If you can’t read it, it says, “I love (heart) mom”  He’s such a sweetie!

Before I go, I just want to beg you to share your Christmas ideas with us.  Spread the inspiration around and we can all benefit.

Last night I was so inspired I couldn’t sleep. I laid in bed trying to will myself to sleep while my uncooperative brain kept running around like an over active 4 year old.

Earlier that evening I spent some time cruising the Internet. I was looking at galleries and portfolios of professional photographers. I was specifically looking at baby and maternity shots with some older children thrown in just for good measure.

You see, we are going to visit our family in Southern California for Thanksgiving and we have recently had a new member addition and another to be born in early 2009. I really want to try my hand at both photographing babies and pregos. I was looking at all these sites to get ideas of shots I could emulate and props I could use. I am hoping that I can produce something that looks halfway professional.

I’m planning on bringing both the D100 and the D40x. I decided on using the D100 with the 50mm lens because then I can use the auto focus feature. My eyes play tricks on me and when I think it is in focus it isn’t. Then I also plan on using the D40x with the kit 18-55mm lens so I can utilize the zooming features. Plus that lens will auto focus with that camera. I was thinking that I had better be using auto focus because I don’t want to have to reshoot the same shot over and over and over and over and over again while I’m trying to find my focus. Anyway… just some thoughts about that.

So the new baby is a girl, which is totally fun for me. I’m the mom of three boys so I don’t get a lot of sugar and spice photos. I get a lot more frogs and puppy dog tails kind of photos. That’s kind of where my mind is most often so it is really fun to think outside of my self-imposed box. So I’ve got a piece of pink textured faux fur, a hunk of black fleece and a cream colored sheep skin in my mental prop arsenal so far. I’ve also got a basket. So those are a few of the things I’m thinking about bringing with me… I am sure her mom (on the left) will want some pictures taken with this tutu wearing sock monkey (made by her sister on the right) as well…

Suggestions for props or sites to be inspired from are MOST welcome!

Well, back to our regularly scheduled Tip of the Week. We’ve got a great Tip for you today and I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Tye really makes a good point, but I won’t spoil it for you. Read it for yourself and give it some thought.

I hope you have a great day. I’m having a lot of thoughts running through my head that I want to share with you but I think I’d better save those for another day. I’ll leave you with a Momshot I took of Gar last Friday. We went up to a ranger station and got a tag for a Christmas tree - this is a ticket that lets you go out into the National Forest and cut down your own tree. We went for a walk in the snow and I took a few shots of the kiddos.