MomShots

It’s Christmas time!!! Yay! We got to come to my husband’s parents house and we will be surrounded by lots of cousins and aunts and uncles in a day. I am so thankful for such a large and wonderful family. I really hit the jackpot when in it comes to my in-laws!

The MomShots Tip of the Day is to keep your camera close by. Someplace out of the way of rough housing and great big hugs but someplace close by that you can grab it and shoot some of those beautiful holiday memories in action.

My mother in law has a bookshelf that has a bunch of photos on top. When I am here, I like to hide my camera back behind the picture of my kids. It is safely hidden from the eyes of kids who might want to play with it but easily accessible to grab when cuteness spontaneously happens.

Here’s my camera in it’s secret hiding spot:

Here’s a shot of my boys’ Christmas letters to Santa hung on the tree.

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Festive Festivus and Crazy Cool Kwanza to everyone!!!

My baby isn’t a baby anymore. She’s a 19 month old toddler who is turning more and more into a big girl every day.

One of my favorite things to do lately is to turn my screensaver on and just watch my computer pull photos from my files for me to look at. Is that the 2011 version of a photo album? It is at my house. My kids will sit with me and we will all comment about who is in each photo, what that person was doing. It’s been great fun and really shown to me the importance of photo albums. Which is something I need to rededicate myself to for 2012.

Here is one of my favorite things about photos, and I’m sure yours too: You can look back and see the details of that growth from baby to toddler, toddler to big kid, big kid to teenager, etc. You get my point.

This photo is from September 2010 and she was just a little 4 month old baby.

Now she’s rapidly growing up and using tools like chairs to get what she wants.

So the MomShots Tip of the Day is to take a minute and compare those little bodies to how they looked a year ago, two years ago, five years ago or more. Take a minute to enjoy who they were and who they are now. Give them a hug and tell them that you love them. Saver that moment in time.

Another thing I have been thinking about… Camera Straps. Will you please leave a comment and tell me about yours and why you like it? Seriously. I will love you forever.

I remember the first camera I got; it was payment for a babysitting job when I was a kid. I don’t remember much about it or even if it worked. But I remember holding it in my hands and feeling deep inside me the possibility that was there. Holding a camera is like holding a whole new world in your fingertips. I could feel that.

Since that very first camera, I have had a small handful. I remember my first SLR, it was a camera I bought at a used camera shop. I didn’t know how to use it. I didn’t know anything about lenses, aperture, shutter speed. I took it to Europe with me in my backpack. It was some off brand and I broke it somewhere between Germany and Turkey. I have a few blurry pictures from that trip. It’s for the best.

I have been very interested in photography for quite a few years. As I know many other parents are. Our children are born and we suddenly have a REAL reason to pick up the camera and increase our knowledge and interest. No parent wants to be blamed for a lack of baby pictures!

I kind of got my hackles up this morning reading a blog post by a well known photographer. I have read the term “mom turned photographer” over and over for the past few years. There is a trend in photography where women, and this tends to be women more than men, decide to open up a photography studio in their home. It is often looked down on by the “professional photographers” who have been in the business for a long time.

These old school guys complain about many different aspects of why this is bad for business. I won’t go into the reasons. There are many and they are varied. I understand their concerns. They are trying to feed their family too.

However…

I want to be an advocate for being the best mom turned photographer you can be. Or dad turned photographer. I want to be an advocate for learning to use your camera and to develop a style that you are proud of. If you have a goal of opening up a home studio then I am completely behind you. I suggest that you practice, practice, practice. Then practice some more.

I have flirted with the idea of opening a home studio and I know that’s not the right choice for me. I do however, want to be good enough to open my own studio. That’s my goal.

What’s your photography goal?

I want you to have your cake and be able to eat it too.

Oh MomShots… you have been such a great place for me. I have a very special place in my heart for you and the readers. I have grown so much through the posts of this blog. I have learned so much about photography and Photoshop that I couldn’t even imagine I would learn. I have much more to learn but I feel like I have a pretty good knowledge base to continue on with my photographic journey.

I can’t decide what to do with this site. I love it. I truly do. I feel like there is such a need for basic information to help parents take better photos of their children. When I first began this site, I felt like I was a ship adrift at sea without a compass. I could find no information specifically about photographing children online that was helpful. I had a camera that was too big for my britches and a software suite that I had no clue how to operate.

Since then, there have been quite a few great sites that have popped up that help parents learn tricks to take better photos of their children. There have been some wonderful tutorials written and a lot of fantastic photographic knowledge spilled forth into the universe of the Internet.

My readers have been wonderful. Over the years, I have loved receiving emails with questions or comments and I have loved reading your comments on the posts. We have had some fantastic guest posts from amazing photographers and learned so much.

I have not been sure what to do with MomShots. I feel like I have lost interest. Well, maybe lost interest isn’t the right word. I have lost my motivation and feel like other things in my life have taken greater priority. I like to think that it has to do with having four children but then I read some of the craft blogs I follow and many of those women have as many children as I do and still manage to maintain fantastic, full, busy and lucrative blogs. When I write that, I think lost interest might be the best way to describe it.

With the birth of my fourth child and first daughter, I have spent much more of my free time working on art projects or sewing instead of writing posts about how to photograph children. I still use my camera ALL THE TIME!!! but I just don’t have the drive to write about it like I used to. Maybe I’m a little bit less narcissistic now. Probably not!

So what is the point of this post, anyway? I guess it is to tell you that I am officially backing off of MomShots. I may decide to work on it again in the future, but for now I am going to let you know this so I will avoid this guilt that has been following me around for the past year.

My current photographic journey is taking place in the form of a 365 Project where I take at least one photograph every day. I am documenting this journey here. I hope you will follow my progress and share your thoughts and comments with me. I can always be reached by email if you have questions or comments relating to photography or anything else that strikes your fancy. Facebook will probably be more active than this site so if you haven’t “Liked” MomShots on Facebook, you should!!! I will still ocassionally be active on Twitter as well. The MomShots Flickr pool is going strong and I hope you will continue to post your photos to that, I will.

Thanks for your support and friendship. You mean more to me than you could possibly know.

They aren’t called Fan Pages anymore are they?

Well whatever they are called, I would love it if you would click on the “Like” button and become a fan of MomShots.

Maybe one day soon I’ll even post a new, exciting and informative blog post.

Maybe, if you’re lucky.

hehehe…

Do you get the Photojojo email newsletter? I’ve talked about it in the past. Some days I skim over it and delete, other days my imagination is captured. Today was one of those imagination capturing days. Not in an “I’ve got to make that” kind of way like it usually is, but in an “I like looking at pictures of people” kind of way.

The photographer Simon Høgsberg was featured in today’s newsletter. He made a GIANT photo using pictures he took over a period of 20 days. You can see it here. I think it is pretty fun and interesting.

Now I want to grab my camera and take random pictures of strangers.

Or create a project I can be obsessed with and excited about for more than a few days.

Does that sound creepy?

I have a question for you and I actually need your response. Can you help me with this? It will just take a second.

Salt Lake City based photographer, Sara Boulter and I have been discussing putting together a workshop for moms (and other photography non-professional types) to teach how to take better pictures. Better pictures of your children, friends, the entire world…

Sara taught one of these seminars a couple years back and I went to it. It was great! I learned a lot and had a really fun and yummy time. She is hilarious and also had great prizes for everyone who came, including a new camera.

I should also mention that the cost was really affordable. It will be so this time as well.

So here’s the question:
If you live in the Mid to Northern Utah areas would you be interested in taking this one evening seminar?

What do you think?

So my friend Scott is in Mexico right now. He is an amazing photographer and just wrote up cool little post about using a point and shoot with underwater houseing while on his trip. I thought some of you might be interested in reading his post. He has some cool photos and some interesting points.

Check out his post here.

One another note…

I have been feeling kind of sentimental lately about photography. This is October 2009 and that marks the two year anniversary since my initial decision to start to learn this crazy art form of photography. My husband was out of town for a business trip and I had my children all dressed up in their adorable Halloween costumes, we had just carved a super cute pumpkin and when I went to take a photo with my trusty little point and shoot camera, I realized it was broke beyond repair. I then mustered up my courage and searched for and found my husbands big scary DSLR (the Nikon D100) and tried to take some photos to remember that day. The problem was that his camera doesn’t have an Auto mode and I could not figure out how to make it work for me. Each shot that I took was too dark and nothing I did was making a difference.

I called my husband to try to get his long distance help but all I got was his voice mail. I was upset and frustrated.

Other than what you see above, I did not get any usable shots from that day. I was disappointed with myself, the camera and anyone else I could blame (I’m sure I tried to blame my husband but that didn’t go over well). I decided right then and there that I would not be held captive by my lack of knowledge with a camera ever again. I vowed to learn how to use an SLR.

I started my quest by looking at the user manual. I am always telling people that if you want to learn how to use your camera you need to start with the user manual. I stand by this. However, starting with the user manual can lead to some frustration if you don’t understand what certain terms mean like “shutter speed” or the ever elusive word, “aperture”. Then there are words that seemed even more strange to me like “white balance”, “autoexposure lock” and “shutter-priority mode”. I found it difficult to start with my user manual because I wasn’t understanding what I was reading and how it related to me.

Instead of throwing in the towel I decided to keep searching, and not giving up on my user manual. I kept it in my camera bag and took it out and read a little bit here and there whenever I learned a new concept or word and then I was more able to relate it to my situation and therefore my little brain was able to process it more thoroughly.

My search took me to the Internet and to the library. I started talking to strangers I would see holding a camera and I was talking to anyone I knew who knew how to use their camera. I was a researching fool!

It was a slow process and I am aware of the vast amount of information I have yet to learn. But I feel that I have learned a so much in these short two years. I have really enjoyed sharing my milestones and thoughts with you, here on MomShots.

I love that photography is an art form that I can incorporate into my daily life. I love the portability of a camera. I love hearing the sound of my shutter closing and opening. I love that photography gives me a chance to explore design, concept and execution in a visual medium as that is something that I always shied away from since I didn’t feel like I had any talent with drawing or painting. I enjoy learning how to be an artist and learning how to find ideas, thoughts and emotions that I can express visually.

I <3 photography!

Have you heard about #GNO? If not you might want to check it out.

Especially tonight, if you are into photography like me. Tonight’s discussion is about photography and how it can help to build meaningful relationships. It should be a really fun discussion.

#GNO is held every Tuesday starting at 6pm PST. I jumped on for a few minutes last week for the first time and was really excited to meet so many cool new ladies. This week the topic is something near and dear to my heart so I’m going to be sure to be there as long as I can.

Check out this link to learn more. And if you don’t have a Twitter account, it is free and super duper easy to set up. Set it up and join in the fun. You can go to TweetChat and enter #gno as the room and you’ll be in a chat type environment that will be easy to follow.

Obligatory photo: