As an artist, I’m learning to appreciate the importance of pursuing personal projects in addition to doing client work. Shooting for myself keeps me disciplined and keeps the creative juices flowing. It also brings me back to the reason I love photography. For 2013, I’ve committed to three different personal projects. I introduced the first project last month — the monthly Letters to our Children blog circle that I’m participating in. The other two projects I’m doing this year are a monthly self-portrait, and a monthly family portrait (of me & my family, with me in the photo!).
I’m so excited to announce that my January self-portrait was selected to be featured on the Clickin Moms blog, alongside a handful of self-portraits from a bunch of incredibly talented women. We were each awarded the Editors’ Choice award for Creative Excellence. You can check out the blog post here.
It’s funny because I wasn’t informed by Clickin Moms that my photo was selected for their blog. I found out about it when my friend posted in a Facebook group to announce that 3 of us gals from Seattle were featured on the blog! Then a few hours later, I learned that Clickin Moms had shared my photo on their Facebook page to promote the blog post. That’s when the real fun began! Since Clickin Moms has over 145,000 followers on Facebook, my photo was seen by a lot of people. All told, it received over 1,300 likes, 160 comments, and was shared 100 times.
I’m so completely humbled by the responses my photo received. These are words that were used to describe my photo:
Beautiful. Powerful. Inspiring. “For once, a REAL photo!”
“Another twin mom here. I had my boys 2 months ago and struggle with my appearance now. This photo is beautiful and really puts things into perspective.”
And this, from fellow photographer Katrina Gotschall who I so respect & admire, “A true testament to what a mother goes through for the love of her children. We tattoo our bodies to illustrate our personalities, and yet so many are ashamed by the tattoos that organically illustrate our journey to motherhood. Thank you for being so brave and showing us how beautiful those natural tattoos are. They tell a story we should all be proud of.”
My photo is entitled “Worth the stretch marks”. When I came up with the concept for the photo, I really just wanted to tell the tale of being a mom of multiples. To show my stretch marks, and have the babies in the photo with me as an explanation for the stretch marks. To show the change in my body but also the sweet and priceless treasure that are my twins. Somehow not including my face made it easier to bare my skin. If you read the blog post, it mentions chopping off your head as one way to make a self-portrait “unconventional”. While I never intended for anyone beyond the CM forum to see the photo, and certainly not anyone I know in real life, I’m so glad that the photo helped some women see their body in a different light. And I learned that there is another term for stretch marks — tiger stripes! I feel so blessed everyday to have these kids in my life, and so proud to be a tiger mama who earned her stripes. 🙂
I wracked my brain all week trying to come up with a suitable photo for this week’s theme. Even after this note came home from school with my 2 year old on Friday, it didn’t hit me until tonight at bedtime. This fit the theme “imperfection” perfectly. I knew I wanted to write about this “bad report” from school on my personal family blog; it’s just so hilarious. What’s even more funny is when I asked her if she’s been pushing her friends at school, she answers emphatically, “No mama!” And so it begins…heh heh!
I’m joining in a tad late on a Project 52, where we post and share a photo a week based on a particular theme. The Project 52 is just for me; no client photos. The idea is to be more disciplined about taking and sharing family photos regularly (and maybe being in a few of them too). The weekly theme is to keep the creative juices flowing. I love the idea of having a photo of my family from every single week of the year, all in one spot, at the end of the year. I also just attended a great seminar on photo book making, so this project would make a great book theme at the end of the year. Many of my Project 52 photos will likely feature my daughter a.k.a. Pumpkin. Because I’m playing catch-up, this post features 3 photos, but my goal is to stay current and feature a single photo along with the theme. This week’s theme (week 4) is “imperfection”. Oh, that’s EASY.
Did you miss the window to get newborn photos done of your baby? I so get it. A new baby can turn your life upside down. Maybe you had an unexpected C-section and having professional photos done during the first 2 weeks of baby’s life was unthinkable. Maybe you had breastfeeding difficulties like me and were living at the lactation consultant’s office. Maybe baby was jaundiced (like mine too) and she spent several days on her own “tanning” bed getting phototherapy. Maybe you just did not feel “pretty” right after birth and the thought of inviting a stranger (e.g. a photographer!) into your home was the last thing on earth you were ready to do.
