New Year 2012

As I'm writing this I'm finishing up "thinking" of my new years resolutions. One of them is definitely documenting through photographs the lives of my children. I know most might think that I already do, being a photographer, but I also fall prey to the busyness of life. This year though, I want to resolve to take more "just because" photos. How many of us have taken that dreaded Olan Mills photo where everyone looks so stiff and "positioned"? And now especially with anyone being able to search YouTube for tutorials, you find more and more super impose backgrounds on pictures and calling it a "professional photograph". I'm guilty of it myself. I'm sure I can dig up the dozen photos I have of my son during his first year of life through studio photos. But I've discovered over the years that children look their best when they just being themselves. That's not to say they can't look polished every now and then on special occasions but I promise you, you'll have better memories of the photographs taken when they were in a more natural setting. This brings me to remember a time when a photographer came to take our family picture. We lived in this small apt and my mom dressed us up and this photographer set up, put up his background, set his lights and positioned us all. Right at the precise moment of the click, my youngest sister decides to throw an epic tantrum, to which we have documented photographs to prove. It was terrible! With all that said, here's a photograph of my children on New Years Day. We just came home from spending the night at my friend's house and I thought that before they got out of their outfits, I wanted my very first photograph of 2012 to be of my most important people. My children. 

not perfect, obviously I wish Selah's hair band was not sticking her ears out but this is the way that they posed. I love the spontaneity. Enjoy your family's photographs, don't expect perfect because at the end of it who's standard are we measuring up to? That's what this photographer is all about.