photography – Page 4 – ~HB ADVENTURE~

April 3, 2014

On Paying the Professional

Maggie had school pictures a while back and this week we got the proofs back. And they are adorable….just a standard school picture headshot, but really, really cute. The photographer invited siblings to come along and get a picture taken together, which we did. Those of both the girls are just as cute, both smiling, happy and a bit matchy-matchy.

I take a ton of pictures of the girls, as documented here, but most of them are unposed and us living life, my favorite kind of pictures. My version of them posing for a portrait is throwing down a quilt and hoping that I get a couple cheese-ball smiles. It usually works and I’m happy.

I’ve only ever taken Maggie to a studio to get her pictures once and the bright white background and wicker chair they put her in, she was about a year old, really didn’t fit with the aesthetic that I like to look at, so it wasn’t something I made time to do again.

But these school pictures? They’re too much. So, I ordered some and grandparents, aunts, uncles….whomever can have their wallet size shot of the girls to carry around and flash bragging rights. It felt strange to pay, what I consider, an arm and a leg for prints, but it documents the girls, and Maggie’s first year of school, in a different setting.

And while I wait to get those images back, I bring you outtakes from our last ‘portrait session’ in our back yard on the first day of Spring.

Enjoy.

March 9, 2014

Please Upgrade. Thanks.

We got another of Maggie’s photo books in the mail recently and on Saturday morning, while Audrey took her nap, Barry and I sat with her and thumbed through the pages. Since I’m roughly a year behind it was the book that documented her 2nd birthday to just before her 3rd. Maggie has an impeccable memory and many of the pictures were met with great giggles and elaboration. She especially loved hearing Barry and I tell additional details about things that we noticed and remembered. The books that I make for my girls (currently working on Audrey’s and Maggie’s latest) are huge and some would probably think over the top. And they might just be…

My mom did a remarkable job with documenting my childhood and my brothers and I each have an album from each year, they have now been consolidated and transferred out of those old albums, but I’ve always loved looking at them, even as a child. I even found joy looking at my brothers’ books. To think what an effort my mom must of made to make sure that each of us had copies of group shots and family outings, impresses me and inspires me to keep plowing through my books.

I sometimes daydream about the idea of ‘becoming’ a lifestyle photographer. I’d love to go into people’s homes and become a fly on the wall and take pictures of their lives….the day to day and nitty gritty of it all. Or just take pictures of a family spending time together – not the posed shots where every body is wearing the same color and holding their guts in, but a family working together in the garden, playing a board game, etc. Capturing the moments that often get lost.

And maybe someday I’ll pursue that avenue of creativity and I really think I’d be doing some families a favor. I don’t mean to sound all high-and-mighty, but I get so sad when I see friends/random people only take horrible, blurry photos of their children with their phones. Of course not everybody wants to learn how to used a big camera, but there are a fair amount of cameras out there that are small and capable of taking pictures of higher quality than any cell phone to date. Since getting my own iPhone this year, I’ve noticed that I tend to use it way more than my ‘big’ camera, and I’m trying to make a point to again pick up my ‘big camera’ to document some things.

After looking though the photo books, I’m critical of my own photography, but Maggie just recognizes a book full of faces and places she loves.

January 30, 2014

I’m Here.

Four days ago I started this post and it was going to be a post about taking care of myself and so I can better take care of those around me, but now all that thinking, four whole days ago, seems like a distant thought. My friend over at Clove’s Corner wrote a great little essay about the exact things that I’ve been thinking about. Check it out here. She often takes the words out of my mouth, and I think that after I read her writing, I feel like I’ve purged a post of my own. I suppose it’s just nice to have a ‘friend’ that feels the same way I do. (Friend in quotes because we’ve never actually met….).

Some really great things have happened lately: we went to Harrison Hot Springs to celebrate Audrey’s birthday, we had a birthday/playdate celebration with the A-Town posse, Barry’s parents came for a great visit, and Brian and Darcy got engaged. Life is full to the brim these days, and by the end of the day, when I have a moment to write about it, I hardly have enough energy to sit down and tap a few words out. So, I chicken-scratch these posts together in hopes that the images and a few words will be enough to remember all the joy and love we feel. Hopefully I can remember between the lines.

Maybe it’s the two cups of coffee I had this morning, or the fact that the house is quiet, but my brain can’t quite settle itself into any sense of a pattern to write. So I won’t. Until next time.

a town playgroup 2013 hannah & Barry