Better Blurried

Two good friends and I are trying to become better photographers...while also working, parenting, being married, etc....excuses often used when we feel like our work isn't improving. Each of us posses certain strengths, but lately, all of us have just been racing to keep up with life around us. I'm in the "shoot and study" mode: shoot the moment, come back later when I download the file and study the photo. Tough thing about always being a photographer is that you struggle to be in the moments. You are usually gaging light sources, checking settings, anticipating next movements, facial emotions, etc. Oddly enough, I long to be in the photos with my family having these moments. (The solution: find a savvy journalistic photographer to follow us around for free. Anyone?)




This past Thursday Brian was out of town for work so I enjoyed a wonderful day at home with the kids. Roland had been under the weather so we all visited the doctor in the morning, returning home to make the most of our day. We were headed for naps - hooray - messing around upstairs when the sun broke through the clouds and flooded light into the room. Instantly my photographer mind said "get the camera and start practicing". I moved some furniture, opened some blinds and plunked the kids down in their appropriate spots to just be kids. Later I was holding Aria with the camera resting on the ledge of the window sill just watching in amusement Roland move all the bed pillows into a cave-like fort between the bed and wall. He came over wanting to take a photo with my camera and I convinced him to push the button and take a photo with us instead. The result was a fun series of images similar to the one above. I never checked a setting or adjusted the lens, I just turned on the timer and told him to push the silver button. He was very interested in doing it right, so we tried it multiple times. I never even bothered to see how they turned on the screen.




Brian and I often talk about how important it is for children to understand they don't have to get it right the first time, how much you can learn from mistakes, what role discovery plays in learning, and all the similar rhetoric that accompanies those thoughts. It's photos like this that remind me that more than children it is us adults who need to understand this message. Aside from this, sometimes the moments seem more "captured" by a photograph when there's less detail for the eye to focus on, and more memory for the viewer to enjoy.



Good work Roland.