How I Got Started

     A few days ago, when I blogged about my "day in the life" photo shoot, I promised to come back and do a post about how I got into photography. I often get the question "How long have you been doing photography?" My answer is "Not long; only about a year or so." In my head, I quietly remember the story that lies behind that answer, and it often makes me smile. So while it is on my brain, I am sitting down to share it with you.
     Almost two years ago, my family made the desicion to breed our dog. In October, 2010, she gave birth to a litter of nine puppies. Around Christmastime, they were about eight weeks old and all set to go to their new families. All of them had wonderful homes, and much as we loved the pups, we were all ready to see them go and to regain some form of "normal life" around our home. That being said, it was still a little sad to see them go and know that this short season of our life was drawing to a close. One night, the oldest pup was scheduled to go home to his family. I was up in my room when I heard the doors open downstairs. I heard voices that I did not recognize. And I heard whoever was downstairs making an exit from our house. I sat in my room and cried, because this puppy that I had helped raise for eight weeks had left and I had not said goodbye, and I probably would not see him again in the near future. After a few minutes, I went downstairs to the basement, where the pups lived while they were with us. And there, to my astonishment was the very puppy which I thought had left. It turned out that my neighbors, and not the puppy's new family, had been the people that I heard leaving. At any rate, I was still a bit disheartened. My mom saw this, and so she took her camera and put it in my hands. She told me to go take pictures of the puppies, because it would make me feel better. I did.
     I had never had any interest in photography before that night. My mom had gotten a DSLR camera the spring before that, and had pursued some interest in photography. She had handed me her camera on several occasions, but I never had any interest. I didn't picture myself doing anything with photography. Ever.
     Back to that night with the puppies. I went down to my basement and climbed into the puppy pen, as we often did. As they moved about me, I just started catching moments as they happened. It amazed me how much you can catch with a camera. I had been around the pups for nearly eight weeks now, but never noticed some of the things that I saw with that camera. That night, I got some of my favorite puppy pictures from the entire experience.
     There was no magic button. I did not suddenly become passionately in love with photography. But something happened that night that got me started on a learning process. That spring, as the flowers started coming up and everything started changing, I went out several times a week with my mom's camera and went around my yard and my neighborhood and took pictures of every tree, flower, and rock that I came across. It was a way of holding on when everything was changing so quickly around me.
     I continued, that summer, to take pictures of everything around me. I volunteered (actually, my mom volunteered me) to do pictures for a non-for-profit organization that I was involved with. I would go and take pictures every week during their weekly lessons - documentary photography at it's best. After that, I was pretty hooked.
     That fall, my homeschool group offered a photography class. That was my first real intro into how how to actually use a camera (other than automatic settings). At that point I was still using my mom's camera - I put so many pictures on her poor camera, that I really owe her a new one... someday... That fall, I got my own camera, which I fell in love with immediately. To this day, my camera rarely leaves my side.
     This spring, I was having a normal school day, when my mom walked into my room. She said to me, "Kaela, I did something really bad." She showed me her facebook wall. She had asked on her wall if anyone wanted to volunteer for me to practice photos on them or their family. Within minutes, several people had responded already. So began my intro to portrait photography. The rest is pretty much all written on here - on my blog. The past few months have included another photo/design class, many portrait sessions, documentary photo shoots, a couple of art shows, and hours and hours of photo editing (not to mention photo blogging). You get the general idea.
     I know this has been a long post, so if you made it through the whole thing, I sincerely congratulate you. I am not sure at this point if photography is something that I will pursue long term, or if it is just something that I can enjoy now. But this story, this whole experience, has been worth every minute, and I can't wait to see where it goes next.

My Favorite

     I love photography. Have I mentioned that before? Even before I loved photography, I loved photos. Sometime I will sit down and actually blog about how I got into photography... but that's another blog post in and of itself.
     My favorite form of photography is documentary photography. I love the art of blending into the background and capturing moments that may only appear once in all the course of history. For whatever reason, I really enjoy that. I think somewhere within my introverted self, I like the solitude of just sort of closing myself into my own little world and focusing on the event at hand, and seeing life through my lens. During any sort of portrait session with kids or with a family, there is a time and place for the smiling, staged photos, but my favorite photos are the ones with the natural smiles, expressions, and interactions.
      So when a friend asked me to come do a "day in the life" photo shoot with her and her family, I was pretty excited. We did end up getting a few nice ones where everyone smiled and looked at the camera, but mostly I was able to just follow them around and catch photos as they played out. Then I came home and played with them on the computer... only slightly distracting :) So, here I shall share with you some of my favorites.

Hmm...

 Strange title, I know. I love names and naming things, but I must admit that I am really struggling to come up with creative blog-post-titles that go with each experience. So I'm skimping out on this one... while I think of some more titles for later dates.
     This post will be brief, but I wanted to share a few favorites from a recent photo shoot with a family. Sweet family, and I loved working with them. We did have a little bit of a challenge with our lighting situation. Bright, late afternoon sunshine and lots of shadows, which are difficult to work with and are nearly impossible to fix on the computer. So, we found as many shady places as we could and worked with what we had... and in the end it worked out alright :)

Enjoy your day!

Life in Photo World

 I feel like I haven't blogged in so long.... I've missed it. This is definitely the craziest time of the year for me and my family, but we're getting through it. Now that I have been officially banned (by my parents/teachers) from doing any school work on this holiday weekend, I am able to take a few minutes to catch up on here... it's my goal to get a couple posts up this weekend. Yay!
     Just because I have not been blogging faithfully does not mean that I have been completely out of photo world. On the contrary, I am learning how time consuming the whole process is. One does not simply go out and take a few pictures, and then put them on a disk. One communicates with people, sometimes for weeks, to find a time, location, and good weather for photos. Then one spends time researching different techniques, ideas, and lighting tips in the days leading up to the photo shoot. Taking the pictures is definitely my favorite part of the process. And then, finally, there is a few days/weeks of photo editing, also very fun. And then, when one sends the completed disk to the family, hopefully they receive permission to blog about the photo shoot. And then I sit down and tell you how much fun I have with it all. Because I do enjoy this process - and I am so thankful for every opportunity to learn more.
     So, here I am, bringing you a photo shoot with a family that I did a few weeks ago. This was my first time working with a family, all together. I have done individual pictures of kids, and even a few of siblings together. But not whole families at once. And frankly, the idea both excited me and scared me. The thought of coordinating everyone in one picture and still finding creative ideas was intimidating. Luckily, this family made it pretty easy for me. with some help from my mom (my self-appointed assistant who I am ever thankful for) we managed to come up with some fun family shots, and everything turned out far better than I had even dared to hope.

So fun! Stay tuned - more photo shoots coming :) God Bless!

Learning

   Now that I have got you a bit caught up on happenings in the past few months, I am jumping back into April to tell you a little bit about this month. Photo world is keeping me extremely busy, with correspondence and setting up photo shoots and all that goes with that. It is the kind of craziness that is so worth while and I love it because it is yet one more aspect of this photo business.
   A few weeks ago I had the wonderful privilege of going and doing a photo shoot with a sweet newborn baby. I learned so much at this shoot. I learned about lighting and the consequences of very high ISO. I learned that the earlier in a baby's young life you do photos, the better. I learned that even when kids don't work exactly the way you had planned, it is impossible not to have fun with such sweet little faces and a camera. So, despite some challenges with baby's schedule and my own camera/lighting scenario, we managed to get some very fun pics of the family :)

   Every shoot is a learning experience for me, but this one was especially so. They say practice makes perfect, but maybe even the very best photographers still have things to learn and experience. I don't know. I do know that I'm gonna keep on practicing over and over again... 

K-love

   I'm not sure how many of you have ever heard of the radio station 104.9, also known as "Klove." My family, my friends, and most people who know me will tell you that I have an obsession with this station. It is a contemporary Christian music station that I listen to a lot. And if I am not listening to Klove, I am listening to other music from the bands and artists I hear on Klove. Just a little note about myself.
   Now, most everyone, I would venture to say, has been around a toddler or young child at some point in their life (I know, this seems totally off subject, but hang on, I will connect this with the previous paragraph in a minute). Even the most calm, quiet children are busy. As little ones, they are learning and exploring and there are oh-so-many things to do, places to be, etc. That is why, when I am photographing young age groups, I tend to just follow them with my camera, giving them fun new places to explore and props to play with (flowers, hats, umbrellas, etc.) Occasionally, I give them some directions, have them smile for the camera, or pose with mom or dad. Mostly, I just catch moments as they happen.
   One Wednesday last March, I got the chance to "shadow" an adorable little girl. A little girl who mistook my name - Kaela - for the radio station, Klove. Thus, my favorite station and I now share the same name :)

   This little girl was so incredibly sweet, and I had way to much fun with her and my camera. The hardest part was trying to limit the amount of pictures I put on here while trying to show you as many of my favorites as possible! Hope her sweet face brightens your day!

One Friday Morning, Part 2

   I have taken you halfway through my crazy, 2000-picture-taking day, late last March. I learned so much, saw so much, experienced so much. I witnessed the birth of a child into the world. I learned how to run on only four hours of sleep and still be social. I continued my ever-learning, ever-discovering experiments in calibrating my camera to my surroundings. I discovered how many sweet moments are captured when I follow around a 1-year old with a camera. And I found out why everyone says that six-month-olds are so fun to photograph :)
   Now, we continue with part two of this day. Before we go any further with my photo experiences, I want to say a tremendous thank-you to my family. My mom worked out all the details with people about when to come, where to meet us, etc. She helped me research lighting, techniques, and oh-so-many other things that helped make it a successful day. And she drove me everywhere. She really makes my job pretty easy :) My brothers and my dad were so patient with all our craziness. The boys came with us for a few shoots, and other times they stayed home to hold down the fort in our absence. Meals were later than normal, and their whole day was offtrack, and I heard no complaints from any of them. They truly were troopers.
   Back to photo world. All week I had been working with small children, from newborns up to 2-year-olds. My next two photo shoots were with kids between the ages of 6 and 11. Working with kids in this age range is a completely different skill set than infant/toddler photography. In fact, I don't think you can even compare the two. With little ones, I tend to follow them around and catch moments as they happen. With kids in the older age set, I actually give them some direction and guidance as to what I want them to do in the pictures, and they, in turn, are able to comprehend and follow instructions. Very different.
   So I share with you the first of these last two shoots. I worked with two children this time, doing individual shots and shots of the two of them together. It was quite entertaining to catch moments between the two of them: the expressions are priceless. Without further comment:

  

   Last session of this crazy day before I went home and crashed :) This little boy made my job so easy for me. He showed up at the park all business. I gave him little-to-no instruction, and he posed and smiled away like a model.

 

 

   And so we wrap up one of the craziest days of my life. So glad I could share it all with you! Stay tuned for some more catch-up in the next couple of weeks.