Real life is brimming with moments worthy of being captured and held close. But most of us rarely oblige. The annual smiling family photos line up on the living room wall, marking evidence of a full year's growth between each one. Portraits that prove there were birthdays celebrated, braces removed, babies turned toddlers. But images of those milestones? They are what's missing. When it comes to retelling the stories of the year past, we've only our memories on which to rely.
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June and July 2017 were overflowing with life and more blessings than we could count. While I continued shooting every day, I was mindful to put my camera down a lot in order to be present in the moment. When we make this choice, we must also be more selective about when we do choose to shoot.
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A couple weeks ago our family and our friends' family rented a quaint lake house in New York so that we could all spend the weekend together. The boys had a bed in the room but it was small and high off the ground.... and they are 4 and 6 and dance and rotate in their sleep. So, the floor it was!
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My son was busy saving the world in his favorite costume the other day, but he couldn't find the cape. Of course, everything had to stop while he located the exact one that came with the costume. (Absolutely no substitutions acceptable!) I had been taking pictures of him jumping off of things- a staple in our house- so I already had my camera as I followed him up to his room to look for the cape. He was pretty sure it was at the very bottom of a big tupperware toy tub (where else?), so he started digging and taking toys out amassing a bigger and bigger pile as he searched.
While he looked, I thought about how I could use the very low, back light in his room.
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I spent so much of March chained to my computer working on my upcoming Click Photo School breakout, that I didn't even notice how beautiful life was this month until I put this post together. Makes me a little sad that my attention was divided, but none of us are perfect and the best we can do is march on, with open hearts and eyes! So here's to living in the moment, and here's to APRIL!
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I shot this image today, on one of the first warm days of 2017! Everyone wanted to get outside and so we went over to visit Mimi and Pap we schlepped out allllll the toys. Everyone was playing with different things at the same time. (Isn't that what happens at your house when the weather breaks and all the kids and adults shed their winter bonds?)
Of course, because everyone was playing with different toys at the same time, I have a camera card full of one child flying a kit, one launching a helicopter with pap, etc... A while it's nice to have images of these memories, in the end, I like to pick one image for my 365 project (and eventually for printing). Because I know one image will be printed, I prefer to choose the one I feel will best help me hold onto the essence of the day. Today, this was the image I chose because it captured a few stories at once.
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Imagine being the age you are now and having in your possession, the full story of your first birthday party, including your close extended family, with less wrinkles and several decades younger.
Imagine seeing the way your parents looked at you. The way your grandma planted a kiss on your chubby cheek. Your uncle, decades younger, playing peekaboo with you or laughing in the corner with your late grandfather.
Imagine getting to take a good look around your very first home- some familiar furniture, not yet broken in.
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I'd been trying to get a nice picture of my son sleeping for a while. He is right on the edge of growing into his big boy face. Soon there will be no more of those sweet baby cheeks. I was on a time crunch. I was on a mission.
The problem I was facing was the light source. When you photograph a sleeping child, you usually need to add a little light to the scene (unless, of course, your child needs lots of light to sleep already).
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2016 is coming to a close, and all over social media it's getting pretty grim reviews and hearty good-riddances. I acknowledge that, for the world as a whole, 2016 pretty much stunk. But if I tried to shoulder all the hate and killings and bickering, I'd be a shadow of myself. So I choose to stay informed, speak out when I feel it matters, and focus on raising two little boys who will someday face the world with love, understanding, and bravery.
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Only a couple week until the Winter Solstice, and you know what that means! Time to put away your camera till spring? No way! Time to get creative with your indoor light sources.
If you were stranded in Alaska during the winter with only your camera, could you survive? Ask yourself, how can I become an indoor photography survivor like Kristina? What light sources could I take advantage of this winter?
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I shot this image at my father in law's birthday celebration a few weeks ago. The goal was to get a shot of the way the three little ones "help" with the birthday candle tradition. I'm always drawn to photographing the things in my kids' childhoods that are becoming traditions and/or things they'll certainly remember when they grow up and have kids of their own. And I'm pretty sure this is one of them, because I remember sitting on laps and offering my expert assistance to my own aunts, uncles, and grandparents... perhaps more than blowing out my own!
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I opened the "doors" to Little Story Studio in 2012, but it wasn't until the second part of 2014 that I found my niche documenting family life. The very first session I shot in this fly-on-the-wall style was that of my good friends, Carolyn and Justin. They were totally open to letting me come to their house and follow them around for the evening. At the time, I didn't even have the correct gear, and some of the low light pictures could be technically better. But their session still gives me the feels when I watch it back.
That got me thinking-- if my eyes well up with tears watching this old video, what do my friends feel and think when THEY watch it back? So, I asked!
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