Theme Thursday - Style

This week is about style. I have to admit, I have very little of this, in my clothing, I wear little makeup and in the pictures I take. I guess my main theme would be comfortable. I wear comfortable clothes, shoes (you know what they say about women in comfortable shoes - their feet don't hurt!), and even in the pictures I take. I like natural looking photos. That seems to be my comfort zone. I follow my kids around all day with the camera in their faces to capture what I feel is their natural habitat. That way I can look back at these photos and try to recreate the memory of that time in our lives. I don't just do this with my kids either. Ever since high school I have been taking photos and recording them in a photo album turned scrapbook turned digital scrapbook. Of course lately, as with many things in my life, this hobby has turned into an obsession. Mostly to perfect my lacking photo skills and branch out into unknown territory such as portrait photography which I love. I used to like to take my kids to the photo studio to capture these moments and fill my many picture frames in my house, but since I bought my new camera, I have been challenging myself to do these sessions myself.

Anyway, what did all of that mean? Well it means this, my style changes often, mostly based on my skill level. There are things that I do now that I was not too good at before such as capturing my daughter in a candid shot doing much of nothing but she looks terribly cute anyway.

I love natural lighting and tend to shoot most of my shots outdoors or near a large window. That is a style that I learned recently after realizing that indoor shots are just too difficult for me!

One of the things that makes a good picture for me is expression. I love the style of the different faces on my kids when they are at play. My son makes the most animated faces and when I grab one, I am pleased, except when that face is totally silly.

As I said, taking photos in natural light is a style I love, and its easier for me. But more than just the lighting, I love bright colors too. I love the way the light reflects off the blueness of my daughters eyes when she is standing in front of our windows.

But of course since I work FT and its been winter, I don't always get the luxury of shooting during the day. I still want to be the paparazzi and take many photos of my kids, so the evenings before bed is prime stalking time. I use my speed light, which I am still getting the hang of, and shoot away. Even if there is nothing special to look at and my kids are getting annoyed with me. Those are still memories I want to remember.

These shots are not exciting or artistic by any means, maybe one day I will get much better at that, but right now I am focusing on getting the workings of my camera in terms of exposure down pat. But since my style is all about capturing the moment, these are the shots I want to remember and look back on in a few years.

So when a shot goes wrong and the colors are terribly off but I like the pose, I resort to other measures to make it look right. In general I love colorful photos first but a good contrasting BW photo is nice too.

The bottom line here is this, I'm not very stylin'. Even in my editing, some photos get frames others do not. I like variety. Mostly bright colors, a few BWs, some candid shots and hopefully once I get better, some portraits. But over all, I love the memories I am making regardless of how good the pictures turn out.