Why I embarked on another 365 project

Last year I decided to try my hand at a 365 project, where I would take a picture a day for 365 days. It was actually 366 days since 2016 was a leap year. I started out strong, but by September I had lost steam and gave up all together. My main issue were days where I was not inspired and felt like the photograph was more of a chore than exciting. I also found that it was hard for me to keep up with uploading the photographs each day and editing and posting, so I would let a week go by and then feel overwhelmed. I have learned that when I am overwhelmed I don’t plow through, instead I bury my head in the sand and walk away, which is exactly what I did in September. So you may be wondering why I would choose to do this to myself again. Am I a glutton for punishment? Do I like to set myself up for failure? No, it is because I need to challenge myself in order to stay motivated. This year I decided to take on the 365 project to actually finish it but more than that I want to push myself. I want to try out new lighting, low lighting, new techniques and this pushes me to do that instead of procrastinate. It forces me to see things differently, take my camera with me when I go out, and document our days. Another part of my 365 project is to do a portrait a week project. I am trying to take a portrait of my kids each week. I want to be able to capture all their silly faces, changes that occur, their moods, etc. and this sounded like a great way to do it.

I hope you will follow along with me. It helps to keep me encouraged if I know people are following along. Also, if you are doing a 365 please share it with me. If you have any ideas for me to try send them my way as well, sometimes I get stumped and having some suggestions would be great.

I hope you enjoy my January photos.  I will be updating the blog at the end of each month, and talk about what I learned, what went well, what failed, how I hate myself for doing this lol, you know that kinda stuff.

You can follow along on my 365 project on flickr My weekly portrait project is also on flickr

A beach session to warm you up

As I sit in my office and it’s only 20 degrees outside, I figured I could blog one of the beach sessions I never had a chance to blog yet. I absolutely love doing beach sunset sessions, the light is just gorgeous! I feel myself warming just looking at these.

Family-beach-sunset-session-stewarts

Had a wonderful summer evening with the Stewart family. When mom contacted me to book the session, I quickly realized that although I had never met her, I knew her daughter, who even though she had not started elementary school ye,t was already the Mayor of the playground there. I knew right away that this would be a fun and playful session.

Baby Anthony

When I first started photographing newborns there was something I felt that was missing, I realized that in order to photograph newborns the way I wanted I had to get rid of all the fluff, focus on the baby and family.  That is what I focused on and now I love photographing newborns.  I love doing a mix of a simple posed newborn session with a lifestyle session.

Baby Michael

How gorgeous is this couple's master bedroom?  It was absolutely the perfect setting to do their little baby Michael's newborn session.  He was such a good baby, and so content the entire session.