Just over a year ago, I got my DSLR camera. At the time, I had no expectations. I was replacing a camera with a glued on lens piece that had fallen off when one of my kids played with it. It had permanent fuzzy spots that showed up on every photo. I imagined nothing more than clear photos from a camera that didn’t have any super glue on it. But, I had every intention to learn how to use that camera to it’s fullest potential. While I started out only using the auto setting, I refused to simply settle for that and not learn more. As a woman who stays home with my kids, perhaps it was a desire to learn something – anything – beyond potty runs and pre-K homework. I am not putting those things down – I love being mom. I found myself wanting to learn something all for me. I found myself passionate about something for me that worked with being a mom – taking pictures of my kids.
As time went on, I was deleting photos from my camera before they even reached the computer that I would have been proud of before. I found myself expecting more of myself simply because of what I was holding in my hand. I was deleting pictures just because they weren’t perfectly exposed or composed even if they were priceless shots of the loves of my life.
This is not where I wanted to be as a mother with a camera. This blog didn’t help. The same way there tends to be a level of “good enough” not quite being enough, I felt the same about photos I shared here. Why share a mediocre house project? Why share a mediocre photo? Well, then a standard was set that I couldn’t share something unless it met a level of perfection that isn’t me.
I took this photo yesterday. Nothing special or spectacular. And I had to remind myself that the moment my kids were having matters far more than how perfect the photography is.
I know, much of it is me. I am fairly certain no one is a harsher critic of myself or the things I do than I am. If someone out there is, please keep talking behind my back because I don’t want to hear harsher criticism of myself than my own. Yet I also attribute some of it to this striving for perfection, this need to only display perfectly posed, perfectly staged photos of life and home for the internet. It’s not all as pretty as a picture all the time and we all know that, yet we don’t always show it.
The step stools we just finished a few days ago? The ones we made all shiny and new? Are completely dirty from tiny toes and splashing water. Funny I haven’t taken a picture of that.
I have really bad hair days. But I love my kids and I love the beach. So why delete it?
I met with a friend last week to give her some tips on how to use her new DSLR. More than halfway through, I remembered to mention “you know, it’s okay if a picture isn’t totally perfect”. Sadly, I had to remind myself of that too. Moments go quickly. Sometimes you can’t adjust settings and get it perfect but you can still get it. And that matters. Small moments with bad hair, messy backgrounds, dirty faces, overexposure, underexposure, red eyes, goofy faces – they are all part of this imperfect, messy life we live. And worth sharing.
absolutely true. and keeping the ones with you in them is so important. also print. you should really print your pictures. i harp on that a lot.
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You know, your photos on this site are completely beautiful. I wouldn’t mind improving my photography skills a bit more . . .
That said, it’s important to remember, as you point out, that we don’t take photographs to show off our photography skills, but to remember something important to us. Content matters.
Nice post.
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great words. I too am a perfectionist with my photos. I like the comment above about the content. Content matters.
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Your not so fabulous hammock picture? Those kids looks thrilled to be hanging out together!
Your bad hair days? My whole family has that curly hair. I’m the only straight hair one in the pack and I cannot tell you how many times I cried over not looking like I fit in.
I, too, am a perfectionist by nature. I wouldn’t even let my husband buy me a nice camera because I didn’t think my photography warranted it. I think it’s time to email him this blog post and revisit that conversation!
Thanks for the words, Emily.
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Thanks for this reminder Emily…..you are SO right!! and I’ve really been trying to catch myself and STOP deleting “unperfect” pictures….because many of them are a perfect representation of our unperfect days!
you pictures are beautiful♥
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Thanks for this reminder Emily…..you are SO right!! and I’ve really been trying to catch myself and STOP deleting “unperfect” pictures….because many of them are a perfect representation of our unperfect days!
your pictures are beautiful♥
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OMGosh, I almost cried when I read your post. I get so depressed and down on myself when I surf and see all the ‘perfect’ pictures. Me, I barely have time to post to my blog, which is usually at a time when my body is already asleep so it takes me even longer to write up something that makes sense and I will post the pics regardless of how they turned out. Later when I go back I am horrified at how bad the pics are all because I was behind and didn’t take the time.
Thank you for making me feel better, especially on a Monday
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Totally right! You need to embrace the moment and enjoy the pics…because they are of the kids, house, friends, LIFE!
PS – I love your curls! ; )
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I love everything about this post and totally get it too. Also, as a fellow curly topped girl, I know there are lots of “bad hair days” but we truly are our own worst critics. I think you look amazing in the pic above, and your children will treasure it.
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I have found that even fuzzy, I still want to post the pic, am I horrible for that. I took some fun pics of a ceramic rooster and they kept flipping upside down when I would down load them. I posted them anyway.
I am hoping for a better camera for mothers day to at least give me a boost in the blog world. Thanks for sharing.
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I just found your blog. I am so glad I did! I just wrote about something very similar to this on my blog. We finally got a decent camera last year, a D80, and I am still getting the hang of using it. My photos are nothing like those on many of the blogs I read. I also don’t process my photos, like, at all, (besides cropping and very occasionally brightening it up if the lighting is bad). It gets to the point where you see so many perfect, unnaturally-hued photos in the blog world that you start to think everyone else’s lives *actually look* like that. I am very grateful for the imperfect shots. It reminds me that we all have messy lives, but that there’s beauty in the messiness.
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Emily Reply:
March 23rd, 2010 at 8:18 am
I meant to mention this in my post as well. I only crop and do small editing adjustments occasionally as well. I remember being disheartened when I found out so many amazing images were really just photoshopped creations and not natural or real.
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That first photo on the hammock is adorable. I like those photos better than any posed portrait shot you could buy.
I can’t believe you deleted photos!? I just went through some old photos while I was at my mom’s house. There were only a few of her back when I was little, most were taken by me and I cut off her head or took a photo of her while she was lying on the couch. At the time, I’m sure she hated them then, but now looking at them she is so young and glad she didn’t throw those photos out because they captured an everyday memory for me and my kids to keep 30 years later.
Nice post:-)
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I love your photos. I only have a tiny point and shoot camera so I wouldn’t know what to do with anything fancy!
There is always a struggle for us semi-perfections to feel our work is not good enough. It is a struggle for me (remember, I have magazine cover-itis) so I just have to force myself to NOT dwell on it. I focus on other things instead. I am doing so much better with it but still once in awhile I feel like people won’t like what I do, because I always know someone does it better than I do!
I really have counsel myself all the time to remember that someone may do it better but if I were to do something better, something else more important to me would have to suffer. We can only do so much, right? YOu are making the right choices.
Beautiful post as always Em!
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I’m actually incredibly charmed by your ‘kids in pajamas’ photos that crop up so often.
I love this post, if only to reassure me that my poorly lit and non-edited photos will work if they’re authentic to me. Your perspective is so often a much-needed reality check for me.
You’re helping me along w/ my blogistential angst.
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Balance for knowing when photography is a tool and when it’s an art form and those special times when it’s both, is tough.
I am a former photography teacher and portrait photographer. You’d think I’d have it all figured out, eh? Still, my desire to tote around my camera and hover in my kids’ faces, ebbs and flows. When to put the camera down and live in front of the lens and have my hands free for playing and not capturing.
Anyway, if we could all have cameras in our mind’s eye that would be sweet! Kind of like mental snapshots with white balance, exposure and file size eliminated. Free to just absorb the moment.
Guess, I’m rambling now…
Peace.
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Very well said. I used to take crappy photos with a point and shoot. Now that I have dslr I am learning to take better photos, but I still want to show the sloppy imperfections of life and family, because that is what is real. I don’t want my life to look like a magazine shoot. Well, on some days that might be nice! LOL
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