Week 1 -- Photography

My love affair with photography started when Tante (my aunt) got me a sony camera before going over to Japan (2002) to teach conversational English.  I started documenting my life and sharing my photos with my family.  I had an eye for photos (at least in my head) and was always happy when I was able to capture something special that I saw (let me tell you there were many other pictures that didn't turn out the way I wanted them to -- I had many happy accidents).
John was always after me to take pictures he would always tell me that I can always delete pictures and that I have digitial film so it doesn't matter and I shouldn't worry about how many shots I have on a memory stick because you can always download them and shoot some more.  While I was in Japan I cateogorized my photos by month and usually never exceeded 200 pictures a month (and usually didn't exceed 100 pictures).  I was living in Japan and never took alot of pictures....but in my mind I thought I took TONS of pictures. 
Since then I have to to organize pictures by cateogory (sometimes by month) and always by the date I took the pictures.  There are days that I might shoot over 300 pictures a day!!  (Those are what I call good days!)
I have since upgraded my sony to a Canon xsi.  I am always learning and growing as a photographer.  I started taking LOTS more pictures after the birth of my 1st son.  I have begun to look back at the pictures that I took in Japan to when I had Little N to currently and I am amazed at the improvement I see.  (Which I love seeing.....even seeing improvement from the birth of Little N to the birth of Little M.)

How far I've come -- I still have a long way to go but I'm seeing progress!
2002 -- Japan (Two of my favorite shots & then many just capturing where I was moments)

Little N -- (2007) -- I love these pictures because they capture a moment but I can see how I've progressed!!

Little M - (2009 - 2010)  I love how I see improvement even here.....granted not all my pictures look like that (I still go for snap shots to capture what the kids are doing just to tell a story about our life during this stage of our life but every month for their first year I would try to take pictures of them kind of like their professional pictures....some months I thought that they were really good and other months....ehhhh not so much!)

Now -- it's helped that I've learned how to use my camera.....which makes me happy!! (I wouldn't want to have my camera for as long as I've had it & not seen improvement (John wouldn't have let me get upgrades either!)! Also it depends on what you want to take pictures of.....do you want to have "professional type pictures of your kids" or do you just want snap shots of your day to day life?  You don't have to chose between those but it helps to know what you want your pictures to look like and to know what makes professional pictures look professional! When you know what you like it's easier to try and learn how to do those type of pictures and figure out how to make it all work!!  Practice, practice, practice!! :-)   My now pictures I will post later this week!

This week's challenge is to show how far you've come.....do you see progress in where you started with your photography to now? Are you just starting out....take pictures and then after a year  or 6 months look at where you started and reflect!  Also think about what you want from yourself?  Do you want to take pro like photos of your kids and life or do you want to capture moments that you don't want to forget that is going on right now in your life?  What's your answer....it can be both and a photographer can always turn off the photographer side of their brain (it's hard) and just spend their time capturing something they don't want to forget!  I'll find some beginning of my journey & what I do now later!