{Photography Inspiration}

I love taking pictures. Lately I've been feeling really low confidence in this area. I feel like I'm horrible and can't take a picture in focus. I feel stressed a lot of times if I am at an event and someone notices I have my camera and tells me they want copies of all my pictures. Because most of the time, unless it's an event I really need to capture, I am practicing. By practicing, I mean I take a picture, check it....change the settings, check it.....change the settings again, check it....this usually takes about two to three tries per photo. Embarrasing to admit, but everyone has to take the time to learn and teach themselves, or I'll be shooting on aperature mode forever. There is nothing wrong with that, but I want to be such good friends with my camera that I can shoot in manual mode.  So I am tediously taking the time to learn. But it is frustrating. I often just want to give in.  Go the easy way and put it into a mode that will do the adjustments by itself. But I know I have to persist and practice.  I will be thankful for it. But there are so many times I want to give up.

Funny, isn't that how all hard things are? It's never the easy way.  It's always harder to persist. I have certainly learned that this year :)

We were in Europe for the past three weeks. And I have felt so much pressure (from myself) to capture perfect photos. But I didn't feel like it. So guess what I did? I kept my point and shoot out, and kept my big boy camera in the bag. There was another reason for that. I got really annoyed with all the tourists walking around with their large fancy cameras and making themselves very known. Considering the travel alert in Europe for AMERICANS, I decided to blend a little. And just pull out the little camera when necessary.  I am pretty sure anyone with a couple hundred dollars can buy a nice DSLR and carry it around.. but it makes me self concious. Like maybe all these people are WAY better than I am.  It's kind of like when I went to soccer tryouts for the State Olympic Development team.  And all these girls with fancy cleats and nice jerseys stood around. And until we began, I convinced myself I was the worst one there.  And then we began.  And I realized that I could hang in there with the best of them.  When will I learn to believe in myself? :)  Lifelong journey, I think.

So I will believe that some recent snapshots are worth sharing.
These three children are from different parents (sweet mommas Rebecca and Jess), but are among the most important kids that I see weekly.  There are some more that I haven't recently taken pics of...but for now, I'll leave you with these.
As I post them, I'm nervous. Because I see all the flaws. But you probably don't.
And, they upload way more grainy than they look on my computer. I have heard that blogger does that. I am going to try to figure out the way around it.
And if you do notice my mistakes, well...that's why I'm a beginner.
Photos make me happy. Portraits. Landscapes are fine, but only if people are in them :)  I am learning so much and loving it. I have so far to go.

tried to blur momma and focus on baby, but missed the focus a bit.

Even babies have toe lint :)