I Am Sarah's Smile: photography

Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts

Project Life- Week 11

This week was a little more cohesive than last week, but still not super matchy matchy.

Here is a close up of a frame that I built up. I don't love the picture of me, but the girls are sooo cute!

I think that Tim Holtz tiny attacher tool would be perfect on the above picture but I would never ever spend $20 on it! I have to wait for a coupon from Michael's or Joann's and then get it.

In November of 2013 I finally gave into my curiosity and succumbed to the Project Life mania. Project Life is an extremely simple way to document, well, Life!
I am an all-star sap. I am one of the most sentimental people I know. I want to know all things about my relatives and family history, I want to save every piece of mail, art, text, photo etc., that people give me.
I love to document my own life and pretty much every little thing that my kids do.
All that to say, I was a good candidate for Project Life.
I haven't been able to photograph my layouts that well because I didn't have a lens that worked, but I recently got a new lens so now I can start posting my layouts!

Week 10

I must say, I'm not your typical Project Lifer. I don't care about my layouts looking clean and uniform.

I make a lot of my own cards, I don't own tons of embellishments so I make my own frames and get creative in other ways.

I've also realized that I'm way more about the photos than the journaling. I haven't actually seen any Project Life layouts like mine...I've hoped to see some, maybe for some inspiration, but I guess I'll keep looking!

At any rate, I love love love Project Life!

Halloween!

When I didn't have kids, Halloween was always kind of stressful because I NEVER could think of a good costume. Now that I have kids, Halloween is so fun! This year was Mabel's first Halloween and it was great!

a bunny and her carrot

We bought the bunny costume at a consignment shop and my mom made the carrot sack (the sack actually says CARROT on it!) and beanie on a loom!
I would safely say they were the cutest pair out trick-or-treating last night!

10|52

Several days ago she wanted to put on her ballet outfit and dance in my room.

She was really into it for about 5 minutes.

She turns 3 in one week.

One week.

Time is too fast.

8|52

Missed last week so now I'm a week behind!
Yesterday she got her new book (purchased from a library sale for a quarter) and curled up on the picnic table and had a good read.

7|52

I cannot believe seven weeks have passed. This year is already too fast. Neely will be 3 in a little over a month and I just want time to stand still.

5|52

She finally learned how to do a fish face! I was feeding her fish food (bubbles) and she was the best fishy.

I've decided to do two photos each week...one Canon photo and one iPhone photo. That's what I have with me every second and where a lot of great shots come from.

4|52

This is a picture of a girl who at this point was starting to feel better but wasn't quite there. This is why I liked this picture. It shows the healing process and the very realness of my messy house while Neely was so sick.
She was riding her Disney Princess truck through the house while holding her kitty wrapped in a dish towel. It was so cute, the fact that she wrapped up her kitty and took it around with her.
She isn't attached to any one stuffy, she goes through phases. This week it was all about her kitty. She put it in a purse and took it to stores, she carried it and talked to it and fed it a bottle. She is so cute while nurturing a stuffed animal!
Today, she is feeling 90% back to normal (just a small cough every once in a while) and she is back to her non-zombie happy self! (and my house is clean again! Well...most of it is.)

3|52

Neely has been sick all week. Today is day five. Five days full of coughing, sneezing, droopy-eyed, and exhausted babycakes.
My week has consisted of being attached to my girl. I can't go ten feet away from her without her crying for me. Even as I type this she's in the living room with Brett saying, "I want Mama, I want Mama." Now she's snuggled up to me in my chair.
Having a sick kid is so hard. I hate seeing her so miserable. She isn't herself and it's so sad.
Hopefully week four of this project will bring a smiling, happy Neely Bear.

I did have a funny conversation with her the other day while laying in bed together.

me: You won't see Dada tonight.
Neely: But I wanted a boy to be home!
me: Well he won't be home until after you're in bed.
Neely: But I wanted to see a boy!
me: Sinatra (our dog) is a boy, you can see him!
Neely: But I wanted to see a big big boy that talks.

(when Neely is upset she refers to Brett as "some boy" or "that boy" and me as "some girl" or "that girl" haha!)

2|52

Neely read this book for about twenty minutes. She was reading about squirrels and they (the squirrels) would even sing songs intermittently. It was amazing.

This week was an actual challenge. I realized a couple things. One, she never sits still and two, things look much more clear through my lens than they do in Photoshop. Weird. This was taken with a Tamron lens, I don't know if anything is wrong with it because it's not mine. I have a Canon lens too but it's fixed so the Tamron is much more convenient.
I'm thankful for this weekly photography challenge because it will force me to learn my camera more.

1|52

Toward the end of last year I was pretty lazy with my camera. I would only take my iPhone with me and while it has amazing quality for something so small, it's just not the same as my Canon 7D.
I've been looking around the internet for inspiration, for some photography project to get involved in and I think I found the perfect thing!
It's one portrait of your child per week for an entire year. Since I take pictures of Neely nonstop anyway, this is perfect!
You can join too, here!

week 1|52

Merry Christmas!

Happy Autumn

Pure Joy.

We love when the rain comes to town.

We had a great day today.

She is the color in my world.

Mini-Shoot with Neely

Last weekend while scouting locations I took a couple cute pictures of Neely.

I am working hard at getting my photography website up and running.
The thing I am stuck on is a good picture of me and the "about me" section. I don't know how to write about myself!
I am excited because I'm going to shoot some friends in a couple weeks, more experience and more fun! I love photo shoots!

So, that's all that's happening with me. Just trying to build my future business.

This is Scary

I'm a big supporter of dreams. You can often find me encouraging others and trying to figure out ways I can help them achieve their dreams (little things like teaching them about social media, etc.).
But.
I have dreams too.
My number one dream was to be a mom. This has been the single most amazing experience of my life. I have never felt love as I do now and I have never been so happy.
Yet...
I have creative dreams that are so impossible-seeming that they are on the verge of being given up.

I want to be a professional photographer.
I want to be the photographer that people brag about to their friends. I want to create amazing imagery. I want to make my family proud. I want to make myself proud.
As soon as I type those words a ~~little~~ big voice inside says, "No! It's too complicated, you're too shy, the shoots you've done before have been stressful, what if people pay lots of money and hate your product..."
And my problem is I don't know how to get past that.
I know my pictures are good but 90% of them have been shoots with Brett & Neely. The other few shoots I've done have been for friends so that is not as scary, although it was scaryish.

I am so scared to try. I am scared to fail. I am scared of disappointing people.

My fear is stifling.

And it's been over a year since I was "working toward" this dream and nothing has changed. I haven't done one paying photo shoot this year. I am not even set on a name.

It's so frustrating.
I need someone to help me and to hold my hand and guide me.

I'm only posting this HONEST entry because it's all I'm thinking about right now.
I am really at a loss.
Do I give up my dream of doing it professionally or somehow get past all of this?

Fun with TTV

Several months ago Brett's student's dad let me borrow his Kodak Duaflex II camera. I had been researching TTV photography for a while but was unable to find one for a decent price. I haven't really tried it out before this week because I didn't think it was possible without a macro lens (according to every single tutorial I've read). Well as it turns out, it IS possible and it's so fun!!
The following images aren't anything amazing, they're just a few that I snapped before we left the house today. I will definitely be incorporating this camera into my professional photography life because it's exactly the look that I'm going for- gritty and vintage!