12 Weeks To Better Photos...Week 11

Is all about our daily environment. This week is all about documenting those places, people, and things we're around day in and day out, and paying special attention to what might be neglected or missing in our photography because it's such a part of our routine that we take it for granted. I'm super excited about this challenge because this is the very reason I wanted to learn to take better photos. I want to capture the everyday moments in a beautiful and creative way. I want to document the ordinary. Like the saying goes..."Enjoy the little things in life...for one day you'll look back and realize they were the big things." I hope to record the little things with my photography along with my scrapbooking (click her to visit my scrapbooking blog).

I encourage you to be observant as you go about your day. Carry your camera with you: take it to work, take it out to eat, take it to the grocery store. I almost always have a camera in my purse. Now that I have a larger DSLR it is more tricky to keep it on me at all times but I make do.
A trip to the store...

These were taken with my old camera back in September, back when my baby girl still had hair for cute pig tails!

A fun way to record your daily environment is to create a visual diary of your day -for one entire day take photos of your normal routine.
For example, consider photographing your typical morning:
your alarm clock, bathroom, toothbrush, bedhead, bathrobe, slippers, workout,
your home, vehicles, school bus, sidewalk, mailbox, morning paper or morning walk, your commute to work, office, cubicle, studio, scrapbooking spot, retail space, favorite chair, cereal bowl, box of doughnuts...whatever you see, touch, or use every morning.
If a whole day feels overwhelming to you, start with an hour or 30 minutes of your day, or even just one snippet of your day. Last year I took this picture of our kitchen table and scrapbooked about it, documenting our morning routine at the time.

It is amazing how quickly some of your routines change while others may continue for years to come. Our routine has completely changed since then. Now all the kids have breakfast at home in the morning...if we aren't running too late.

According to wikipedia documentary photography is a type of photojournalism where "the photographer attempts to produce truthful, objective, and usually candid photography of a particular subject, most often pictures of people. The pictures usually depict a certain perspective of the photographer."
Be a photojournalist-use photos to document your lives.

I enjoy technically perfect photos, of course, that is what taking this photography course is all about, but emotionally perfect photos speak to the heart. I am a mom with a camera and a scrapbooker who truly feels like one of the most important things that I do for my family is to document our lives through photography (and scrapbooking :wink:). My favorite photos to capture and scrapbook are those little, everyday moments that will mean so much when you look back...a typical morning around our house, the kids playing in an empty cardboard box, the smiles, the laughs, the connections...because, to me, it’s all those little moments, those moments we sometimes miss in the hustle and bustle of it all, that really make us who we are. As much as I enjoy capturing the technically perfect picture, there is something missing...a story, a memory, a connection. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to capture technically and emotionally perfect photos all in one (which is my ultimate goal) but if I had to choose just one...emotionally perfect is the one for me.

So here's an overload of recent pictures straight off of the camera that simply make my heart happy...













The Challenge

Embrace your daily life!
1. Capture a small snippet of your life that usually goes unnoticed
2. Create a visual record of your day

Check out 2 Peas in a Bucket if you want more info on this course. This was the last real challenge, next week is all about lenses.

Enjoy capturing the little things!