Why I pull out my camera every day(And why I think you should too)!

This is my second year starting a 365 project. If you don’t know what that is, it essentially means you take one picture every single day. Last year, although I shot almost every day, I fell off on posting it every day. Social media, man, it just gets to me sometimes and I have to take a break. I’m determined to share it for real this year though and I cant wait to see what I create by the end of the year!

We look forward to the photo book I print up at the end of the year. They pull the photo books out regularly and sit flipping through them. It makes all of the work so worth it. I love that my kids have this tangible reminder of the good in our days.

Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? Every day we are shaping and making memories with these tiny humans, and sometimes, I worry that they will only remember me being frustrated. But they have these small reminders that our days really were filled with so much good. Even on the hard days. And my hope, by doing this, is that I’m shaping them up to remember more of the good than the hard.

Today, I jumped on Facebook and in my memories was a video of Ella from only a year ago. I could hardly remember her looking like that. When it comes down to it, the things we think we would never forget, sometimes end up slipping our mind. I have cherished having these tokens of every stage of our life. It all goes so fast. They change constantly. Those little chubby, dimply knees give way to kid knees. That face that was always covered in whatever they were eating, eventually stays clean during meals. Those little details that make up your whole life for a while, they change, always, and being able to remember is so valuable to me.

It’s easy to think your everyday is boring. That you don’t have anything to document. But the truth is, we will long for this season of “boring, messy, cluttered” at some point and wish we had really stopped to take it all in. Eventually everything will just be a memory and that’s why I’m so passionate about this work. About documenting our one beautiful, ordinary life. We won’t get this time back, and neither will you! Eventually we will only have the pictures we’ve taken to help transport us back to this spot, this hectic, chaotic, wonderful spot that we are in the thick of now.

If you have a hard time seeing the beauty through the mess and chaos, I’m here for you! If you’re too exhausted to pull out that camera and take that picture, if you’re overwhelmed by this season, I completely get it. In those instances (and even if you’ve got this thing down!), I think, the best thing you can do is to get someone to come to your home and document it all for you. Let me show you the beauty of your life; clutter, messes, mismatched decor and all! I promise it’s worthy and that you will have pictures you’ll cherish for years and years to come! Your kids will flip through the book you make for them a thousand times and eventually, your grandchildren will be transported back to this time when their parents were tiny and their grandparents were in the thick of this parenting thing. Let me capture your beautiful ordinary life and show you just how breathtaking I find it to be!

Time After Time

“Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back.” – Harvey Mackay

I taught the kids how to shuffle cards last month while we were on vacation. You know the way, where you stack them on top of each other and form a cool flippy bridge? They were enthralled and spent the entire week practicing.

This vacation turned out completely different than we planned. Zach and I were going to go to Hawaii together. Our first trip, just the two of us, in nearly a decade. We saved for nearly eight months and were so excited. Instead, we ended up driving 18 hours with four kids and my mother-in-law to South Carolina and it was better than I could have ever imagined.

It got me thinking a lot about how when everything is stripped down to the bare essentials you are given back your TIME.

“This is a wonderful day. I have never seen this one before.” – Maya Angelou

Zach and I have been on a minimalist journey for a few years now. We do good, then stop and suddenly our house is full again with things that don’t matter. Things that take away from our family time. Things that I have to manage, care for, keep track of, and clean.

Before this trip we spent a couple of months going through the whole house, basement and closets included. We pared the kids down to 7 outfits and 3 pajamas each, we went through the books, I went through every single thing of “mine” in this house until it all fit on the one (small) shelf of my closet. We took countless trips to Goodwill.

I just need you to know that paring our house down to the most important things has made so much difference to my own mental health. I am more present with my kids. Packing for the week long trip was a breeze. We had two duffle backpacks and one other small bag with diapers, wipes, binks, and a bottle. That’s all we brought. I packed for my whole family of six in a little over an hour. And my house was spotless when we left.

On top of getting rid of anything extra, we also implemented a cleaning schedule that is so simple to keep up on. Everyday, the kids and I work in a different room on top of each of us having regular daily chores we are responsible for. Altogether chores take us about 30 minutes a day (weekends are free!), but the difference in my home is life-giving. The kids take pride in our clean home and even if every single toy gets pulled out, when we band together, our house can be back to “mom’s standard” in about twenty minutes. Don’t get me wrong, my house still gets TRASHED, but it doesn’t take much to pull it back together and that is worth everything to my mental health.

“If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day ‘til eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you”

— Jim Croce

I guess my point is, this mom thing is hard sometimes. It’s time consuming. But by figuring out what was important to me, what my goals were for myself and for my family, how I wanted my home to feel to my kids, the kinds of memories I wanted to make sure my kids had, and getting rid of anything that stood in the way of that, I’ve been given back my time. I’m chipping away at my goals again. We are planning trips and adventures again. We are saving money and teaching our kids that people and going on adventures together are more important than things. And also, that you really don’t need much to be happy and content. Now that all of the clutter is out, we have time to really enjoy our favorite things. My kids are playing again, really playing, and I am the relaxed mom I wanted to be all along.

March Recap

How is it already April?! I am sooooo looking forward to summer. I’m definitely a summer girl. The hotter the better. My most favorite day is when you walk outside and it’s so humid that you cant breathe! Ahhhhh, it’ll happen so soon! I cant wait to start camping again. That’s my joy!

We’ve been plugging along over here. Our weeks are pretty packed these days. Monday’s and Wednesday’s are our full days at home, then on Tuesday’s and Friday’s we are at Under His Wings, a nonprofit I volunteer for, and on Thursday’s we watch my niece, Kenzie. Zach has been working a lot. His outage is every February, but this year it got extended until the end of April. Every five days he gets one day off and we are soooooo over it! We miss that guy! Add into that school, housework, and other responsibilities and let me just tell you, I sleep HARD at night… when Ella and Mabel let me haha!

Ella is walking now. It happened so fast. She will turn one next week, which blows my mind. Mabel is… two, and two is hard for me. She’s fiercely independent, but also absolutely hilarious. She frustrates me, then gets me laughing almost instantly after. Declan has gotten really into science lately. He’s constantly pulling out magnets and doing little experiments with his school DVD. Harper turned 8 on March 11th. I cant believe it. She loves to bake and help in the kitchen. I honestly wouldn’t be able to function without her. She is Ella’s favorite person and sometimes the only one who can make her happy.

I have a few shoots coming up this month and I’m excited to get back to work after a couple of months off. I cant wait for sunset sessions again! If you’re wanting to get on my books I’d suggest doing it sooner rather than later!

I am doing something I don’t normally do, and this year I have decided to offer Motherhood Mini sessions. I’m doing them on April 17th at my absolute favorite location in Ottawa. They are going to be 20 minute sessions, $75, and I’m going to promise 5 pictures, but you may get lucky and get a few more!

I still have a few sessions left of the Day In Your Life at the introductory rate, and I have all the births slots to book, which I am SO DANG EAGER to fill! I cant wait to shoot another birth. It’s my favorite thing. If that’s you, contact me and we can chat! And don’t forget, if you recommend a birth client to me, let me know so I can hook you up with a discounted session of your choice!

Just to remind you, Day In Your Life sessions are all documentary. They aren’t posed or matchy, they are your MEMORIES! A literal Day In Your Life. Documenting your family right now, as they are! It’s the way I document my family. I think it’s so important. Your ordinary, amazing everyday. These sessions are held either in your home, or doing an activity that’s important to you. Maybe visiting grandma’s house, or baking cookies, or your bedtime routine, or even just hanging around the house. I love these sessions so much and I’m offering them at a discounted, portfolio building rate for this whole year. I accept payment plans, too! I want to make this as doable for you as possible because I think documenting this time in your home is that important!

March was rough for my project, but I did it! I’m proud of myself for sticking to it and I’m learning so much by picking up my camera every single day. I’m almost at 100 days now! Thank you for supporting me and following along on my journey!

Updates

I had such good intentions with this blog, but life. The Friday night after I posted that last blog post, I was chatting with Zach on what to blog about; brainstorming and picking out pictures. My big kids had slept at my parents house that night and I intended to spend that Saturday morning working on photography stuff. Instead we ended up being admitted to the hospital for three days with our little Ella.

When I tell you that it was the scariest parenting moment I have ever had in my life, I mean that. It takes a lot to scare me. Overall, I’m a pretty chill, “it’s probably fine,” kind of parent. But when she grabbed the handle on that fresh cup of coffee and dumped the entire scalding mug on her tiny little body, I was terrified. Her screams pierced through me. It’s taken me months to get them out of my head. When I got her out of her sleeper and saw skin hanging I joined her in screaming.

It’s taken me a while to get back into my groove. I’ve kept up on my project and continued picking up my camera, but I have slacked on almost all of my other business-y goals. I just got into such a slump of trying to make sure she was ok, watching her like a hawk, and being an anxious mess over it in a way that I’ve never felt when it came to parenting.

We were so lucky in that although it was a pretty large area that she burned, we were able to get her burn treatments. Already, just about six weeks out, most of it has healed and you can hardly see it anymore. They don’t think she will have any scarring and I’m just so thankful that she’s ok.

So, life keeps moving. I keep thinking back to this time last year, when we were waiting on her arrival. I remember being so afraid wondering if my midwife would be able to come to the house, worried about this virus that we didn’t know anything about. That dreamlike state when you are so pregnant that it’s miserable, but it also feels like floating between two worlds, the now and the future. Except you have no control over when or how that future happens, only the baby does. And all along it was our Ella.

Anyway, all that to say that I’m getting back to work, so be on the lookout for new blog posts packed with pictures that don’t make my Insta feed, probably some snippets of our weeks, and some work stuff. Remember I have promotions going on all year for birth photography and documentary photography so hit me up if that’s something you’re interested in!

Projects Galore

Guys, I haven’t been inspired the way I am now in so freaking long. As someone who struggles to go after the things I want, I’m proud to say I have pushed myself and showed up for myself so much lately. It sounds like I’m tooting my own horn, but if you know me, you know how rare it is that I step up to the bat. I’d rather someone else hit that home run while I watch safely from the stands only imagining what that feels like.

On top of finally figuring out what I want to offer to the photography community, I’ve also started a new 365 project! So far I have picked up my camera every single day this year ("This is going to sound weird, but for a second, I think you took on the shape of a unicorn." -- Dale ((if you know, you know))). I’m excited to see our whole year in pictures.

I think it will only bring good to our life and my business to be picking up my camera every single day and I’m excited for the challenge. I’ve started these projects at least 50 times, no joke, but this is the longest I’ve ever stuck with it and it’s already teaching me to look at my home and kids and light in new ways! I’m kind of obsessed with our tiny ugly, usually dirty bathroom right now, so prepare yourself to see a lot of it.

My other goal is to blog every single week, and to post them on Sunday’s. One thing I want to document are the pictures that didn’t make my Instagram feed throughout the week, along with little tidbits about our week and some work stuff.

So, anyway, to kick us off, one fun fact about me: I’ve been listening to the same music for 14 years now (heyyyyy Avett Brothers and old school Taking Back Sunday ilysm). Last week I remembered Joshua Radin (sup 2006?) who I basically listened to on repeat for five years straight, and in case you’re wondering, he may be even better now, so you’re welcome.

Please tell me the artists you’ve stuck with the longest, the ones who got you through the hard. The artists you go to over and over who feel like old friends by now. Bonus points if I’ve never heard of them and end up LOVING their music.

Documenting your one ordinary, amazing life!

So, 2021 happened… I still write 2020 almost every single morning when I sit down to journal. It’ll be March before I get into the habit of writing it.

One of the very first pictures I ever took of my kids with my “big” camera. Harper wore that Cinderella dress for two years straight, every single day.

Anyway, I know this time is crazy and confusing and it feels really hard to navigate, but I am so excited for what I have coming up in 2021. I have a ton of new offerings that I hope you’ll love as much as I do!

That bink.

I shot my first birth last week and it was EVERYTHING. I came home from the birth center and told Zach, “I know what I want to be when I grow up.” I never want to stop doing that. It was breathtaking, to watch someone stand in their power and roar their baby earth side. I don’t see how it ever gets old.

wrinkly baby feet are my favvvv

Even as I sat editing the pictures I quietly cried, reliving the beauty and strength I witnessed. It was the most meaningful work I think I’ve ever done, besides documenting my own family’s day to day life. It was the most fulfilling thing.

Baby Mabel.

So, basically, I never want to stop capturing birth and that is going to be the biggest thing I push in the new year. I am running a promotion on birth right now. The first 5 people who book are going to get this at $250 and then it’s going up to $500 for the rest of the year. Help me make my dreams come true!

Excuse me while I go sob.

My second new offering is something I’m going to call Day in Your Life Sessions. This is exactly what it sounds like; its going to be a 4 hour block of time documenting the special bits of your day.

I had no idea what I was doing with my camera back then, but I am so thankful for these pictures

Something I’ve heard so many times since I first started documenting my kids back in 2017 was, “I wish I had pictures of my kids like you do of yours.” And I want that for you too. So much! So I’m going to offer it to you.

These sessions aren’t posed at all. They aren’t matchy matchy and wearing your Sunday best, they aren’t going to be perfectly curated with your grey walls and plushy white pillows. These are the nitty gritty of your day. These are your memories. These are the pictures that will fill your picture books. The ones your kids will pull out and say, “I remember that tooth brush! Remember when you carried that stuffy around constantly? We read that book together every single day.” These are your regular, ordinary, daily moments documented so that you and your family remember forever.

So many people are worried about their house (too small, too messy, too dark, too cluttered, too… fill in the blank), but none of that matters, at all!! When you look back, do you want to see a perfect home, or happy, connected kids? Do you want to miss out because you were too worried that your ordinary wasn’t good enough? Or do you want to take the chance and document your life and love and the family culture you’ve created in your home?! Personally, I always err on the side of documenting our life despite how messy our house normally is!

I am also running a promotion on these sessions. The first two who book are going to get it for $150, then the next 3 who book after that will get it for $250, after that it goes up to $500 for the rest of the year.

I cant wait to start documenting the big and small moments of your one ordinary, amazing life!

***Please note that these are portfolio building prices. I’m basically making a market for myself, as very few people even know what the heck I’m talking about when I talk about these sessions! I’m doing this at a discounted price to be able to use 10-15 of the images to show others what I’m talking about, so you must be ok with me using some of the images for promotional purposes. We can work together to figure out which ones, but if I’m unable to share a few I wont be able to do it at a portfolio building price! If you’re interested in a session but not in being a part of the portfolio building process, I totally get it! And would still LOVE to talk to you about scheduling a session. I want this accessible so payment plans are available, don’t hesitate to reach out and ask!***

Clinging to hope

I have been obsessed with pictures and the stories they tell for as long as I can remember. As a kid I was constantly making a mess of my mom’s rubber made containers of pictures. I spent so much time scouring and asking questions about the pictures in the depths of our basement, I could probably still tell you about most of them to this day.

A lot of people probably already know how I stumbled upon the camera, but in case you’re new here, I’m going to tell the story again.

I was always the kid with the camera, the kid who saved her money for film! As a result we have so many random (and some inappropriate haha) things about our life documented. It’s so fun to pull them out and find things we had completely forgotten about.

With my high school graduation money I bought my first DSLR; a Canon Rebel XTI and I was hooked.

Then, as it does, life got in the way. I had bills to pay and no time to play. I gave the camera to my mom and set about being a grown up.

In December of 2015, almost 5 years ago to the date, my best friend was killed in a car accident. That single moment shaped me forever. She was a mother, like me, to two very young kids only months apart from the ages of my own kids. She was this amazing, eclectic artist, and she was the bravest person I had ever known. And she was suddenly just gone.

I felt like so much of myself died right alongside of her. We had been fighting when she died and hadn’t spoken in three months. Just the week before she died I told Zach that our fight was stupid and I wanted to make it right with her before Christmas… and I never did.

The guilt was all consuming. I hated myself so much. I struggled to find any beauty in my life, struggled to get off the couch, struggled to put the wine down, struggled to face my day to day. It got to the point that I could hardly look at my kids for the amount of guilt and shame I felt. I thought they deserved better than me. I hated that Shannon’s kids wouldn’t remember her when she was such an amazing mother, and mine were stuck with me who couldn’t even appreciate the life she had.

Then one night, bottle of wine beside me, Zach working midnights and gone for the night, kids in bed, I started browsing Instagram, trying to numb my loneliness.

Somehow I stumbled upon Joy Prouty’s page and her work took my breath away. The way she saw her kids, the honesty in words, her perspective, all of it was exactly what I needed to see. I was inspired for the first time in almost a year.

I told Zach the very next day that I wanted to buy myself a camera, to see if I still could love taking pictures. He was probably desperate to have his wife back and agreed to let me spend so much money, “just to see.”

What I saw was the beauty of my life.

Looking through that viewfinder I found hope. I saw love. I watched the way my people cared for me. How my husband patiently, and without judgement, continued to draw close to me as I pushed everyone away. I noticed my kid’s fatty little knees, and the hair on the back of their necks. I saw the light for the first time in so long. I watched it through the windows, played with it in the backyard, and slowly, I started to feel that light inside of me whenever I picked up my camera.

I remembered that it wasn’t me who died, even though it felt like it sometimes. I remembered that I had dreams and goals and for the first time in a very long time, I decided to go after them.

We ended up buying an old 1983 slide in truck camper. The next two summers were spent in that camper. We got our family back. We talked through hard things in lawn chairs, being eaten alive by mosquitos, while the kids slept in the shared twin bed inside the camper. We traveled as much as possible over the next two summers and started dreaming together again.

These pictures are from that time. Just me and a camera I hardly understood how to work, playing around with my kids, remembering who I am and what I love to do, traveling, actually living and noticing my life again. And it all started with my camera.

These pictures to me, represent hope. Most of them aren’t technically correct. Some aren’t even a little bit in focus. But that didn’t matter to me at all. I look at this collection and all I feel is that surge of hope. I see these and remember the pride I felt finally figuring out the exposure triangle after playing for months. Or the first time I created bokeh and I got teary because I had been trying to figure it out all day long and my kids were being so kind and patient with me.

My wish is that you, too, can find a little bit of hope this season. Whether that’s a little self love, or forgiveness. Maybe it’s remembering who you are and what you love. It could be picking up an old hobby or starting a new one. Or maybe it’s none of those things and it’s just a hard conversation you’ve been putting off because it can be scary, but you know it is a step toward healing what’s hurting or broken. My wish is that you find some hope to cling to even if things look bleak and you are drowning in grief or things feel really hard and it maybe seems like you’ve lost your way.

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness — Desmond Tutu

A New Website and A New Project

This website has been a vision of mine for a while. I’m not really sure why the thought of an actual site was so intimidating to me, but I kept putting it off. Maybe it has something to do with imposter syndrome. We are our own worst critics after all, right?! I’m definitely not immune to that. We have some absolutely amazing and talented photographers in our area, a few of which I am privileged enough to call friend, and the thought of putting my work out there too was maybe just a little overwhelming!

But, here goes nothing!

I am currently 37 weeks pregnant with my fourth tiny (or not so tiny) and it never fails that the creative juices start to flow right around this time and into postpartum for me. I don’t know what it is about birth and new life that gets my creativity flowing, but it always does. With Harper I wrote a novel, with Declan I started a blog, and with Mabel I never put down my camera for a single second. Funny how my fourth baby is kind of tying it all together, writing and photography, putting a nice little bow on it all.

I started a 365 project this last week and decided that maybe I would blog weekly and highlight my favorites! I thought it could be a fun little project and would keep me motivated to continue picking up my camera.

I hardly picked it up all winter long and whenever I go through spells of not taking pictures I feel myself start to sink back into my rut. I stop looking for the beauty. I stop paying attention to the tiny details of my regular, everyday life. The breathtaking beauty that lives in every single day. Taking pictures makes me a better human. I love it so much!