Photographs are windows to our memory. Reflections of our life. Reminders of our blessings. Each Wednesday we feature 5 personal favorite photos from a Creative Team member or a friend. These 5 photos will remind of us why photography is so beautiful and why documenting the everyday is so important. The goal is to leave us all a little more inspired to cultivate a good life and record it.

Our inspiration this week comes from Creative Team member Cathy Zielske. In her own words…

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During all of 2012, I’ve been taking more and more pictures with my iPhone. Yes, I have a big, fancy DSLR, and yes, the quality of the photos is amazing, but it’s not always within reach, and it’s certainly not with me everywhere I go.

Here are five photos from the past year, taken with my phone and processed via my favorite app, Instagram, and the take-away behind each shot.

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Shoot ordinary moments

Seeing my 13-year-old, chilling on the couch with the omnipresent laptop reminds me that one day, this boy is going to fill up a lot more of the couch. I love to shoot people unaware, and often, I’ll mute my phone so they don’t hear the tell-tale shutter sound. I’m finding that teen aged boys are much less fond of having their photos taken.

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Don’t worry about getting the perfect shot

This photo, taken at 5 a.m. on a day when my oldest child was headed off on a mission trip to El Salvador isn’t a classically fabulous shot, with all the clutter and the low light and high grain. But what I see is a 15-year-old girl full of nerves and excitement for her first major trip away from her family, and I recall my own worries and fears for her safety. This simple cell phone shot packs a lot of emotion for me. Sometimes, grabbing your cell phone and shooting away, even in less than ideal settings, will save a memory you will never forget.

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Snap your surroundings

Where are you right now? Is it worthy of a quick shot? Sure! Why not? I love to take photos of my surroundings, and I usually try to get some part of me in the shot. This photo was taken up in Northern Minnesota at our family cabin. I can smell the lake and feel the cool breeze and am instantly transported. One quick snap on the cell phone and the memory is saved.

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Inspiration is everywhere

When you’re out and about, if you see something that inspires you, stop and get a shot. One day, driving to my bank, I noticed a new building where they’d engraved words all over the building. I pulled my car up, leaned out the window and took the shot. I think there is inspiration at nearly every turn and all you need is a phone camera to save the scene. Pay attention to what catches your eye. The most interesting photos can result.

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Don’t forget about you

With a cell phone camera, you can basically shoot away until you get a flattering shot of yourself, and why not? As the memory keeper of your family, I’m guessing the number of photos of you might be sorely lacking. Don’t forget about taking pictures of yourself. Seriously. There are so few photos of my mom from her younger years, and sure, they didn’t take photos the way we do today. Still, get out of the mindset that pictures of you aren’t as important. Because they are.

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You can learn more about Cathy here +  check out more of her everyday photos and Project Life pages on her blog.

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Photographs are windows to our memory. Reflections of our life. Reminders of our blessings. Each Wednesday we feature 5 personal favorite photos from a Creative Team member or a friend. These 5 photos will remind of us why photography is so beautiful and why documenting the everyday is so important. The goal is to leave us all a little more inspired to cultivate a good life and record it.

Our inspiration this week comes from Creative Team member Deb Duty. In her own words …

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Here are some recent favorites (and one not so recent) of a variety of different kinds of images that I like to capture.

Capture the details. I did take a photo of my son enjoying his snowball this day too, but I also wanted to remember just how yummy it looked up close.

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Capture relationships. On this day when I dropped my boys off at carpool, I documented how my older son always waits for his brother to grab his stuff so they can walk together. This makes me happy and I’m so glad I captured this moment last year because now my son is driving to school so my carpool days are already over.

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Capture the emotion. We totally surprised my in-laws with a 50th anniversary party. They asked me to take a picture of them by the cake, but my favorite was the one I snapped right after as they laughed and shared a moment with each other in disbelief.

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Capture the amazing world around you. I enjoy taking pictures on my walks of flowers or trees or whatever I find interesting… like the day I saw a perfectly shaped bunny cloud in the sky from my driveway.

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Capture the stories you want to remember. My mom took this photo in 1959 of the very first meal she prepared after she and my dad were married. She became a fabulous cook so I was always amused when I would look through her photos and see that their first meal was fish sticks, butter beans and loaf bread! My parents took very few photos when they were first married and almost none that didn’t include people. But for this one, she was ahead of her time… capturing a Project Life everyday kind of photo.

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You can learn more about Deb here + check out more of her everyday photos and Project Life pages on her blog.

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Photographs are windows to our memory. Reflections of our life. Reminders of our blessings. Each Wednesday we are featuring 5 personal favorite photos from a Creative Team member or a friend. These 5 photos will remind of us why photography is so beautiful and why documenting the everyday is so important. The goal is to leave us all a little more inspired to cultivate a good life and record it.

Our inspiration this weeks comes from Creative Team member Jennifer Woodbury.

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Like many moms, I became really interested in photography after the birth of my first child. I spent countless hours taking pictures (lots and lots of pictures), learning the ins and outs of my camera, and figuring out the fundamentals of photography. My skills improved and eventually I had countless lovely portrait-style photos of my oldest daughter. But then I realized something…those photos sort of bored me. Of course, there is definitely a time and place for beautiful portraits and the usual pictures of everyone smiling for the camera, but they start to become repetitive after awhile if those are the only photos you’re taking.

Once I made that realization, my focus shifter from just taking pretty pictures to taking photos that told more of a story about my daughter’s – and my family’s – personality, interest, and everyday life. It’s one of the main reasons I decided to take on a photo a day project back in 2008 (and then repeated it in 2009 & 2011). And through that process I realized that the photos I love the most don’t have to be “technically” perfect to be meaningful.

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Plan ahead and don’t forget to include yourself. Even if you are trying to capture a candid moment, sometimes it takes a little forethought. I often have a running mental list of photos I want to take; meaningful rituals (however big or small) that are part of our family life right now that I don’t want to forget. I knew I somehow wanted to document our tradition of having a family hug each night, so I made a point of bringing my camera upstairs for bedtime one evening. I just placed it on the dresser and took some photos using my remote. I highly recommend getting a remote control for your camera if you can. They are usually relatively cheap (I bought mine for just around $20) and it makes is so much easier to get yourself in a shot. Of course, don’t limit yourself by whatever piece of equipment you don’t  have. The camera timer is not quite as convenient but is always an option too!

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Document relationships. With kids especially, this can take a lot of patience. When I see my kids interacting together, I will often grab my camera and try to take a photo without them even noticing I’m there. A lot of the time, it doesn’t work. It that’s the case, I usually just sit near them and wait for them to relax and forget about me and my camera. More often than not, my patience pays off.

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Don’t just take photos of the important people in your life, take pictures of the things that are important to them as well. And if you can get both the person and the thing together, even better! I love that this photo not only tells the story of my middle daughter’s loved and well worn blanket, but it also documents the fact that she can fall asleep absolutely anywhere.

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Think about the bigger picture. When taking a picture of an everyday activity, I try to take pictures from several different perspectives until I figure out which one tells my story best. I zoom out, zoom in, or try shooting from a different angle. When I first tried to capture my then first grade daughter doing her homework after school, I zoomed in tightly on her. But when I zoomed out I realized that I was capturing a much more complete story filled with all the distractions that two little sisters have to offer (a craft project on one side and a car being driven – with sound affects – on the other side).

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If you want a smile, try to make it a natural one. At the end of the day, sometimes I just want a cute picture of one of my girls. But I still want them to look like themselves. Whenever I ask them to smile for the camera I always end up getting the most bizarre expressions instead, so I’ve found that taking a photo while they are doing something they truly enjoy helps a lot in getting a genuine smile on camera. And if all else fails, underwear jokes always seem to do the trick. I’m not above much when it comes to getting a great photo!

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You can learn more about Jennifer here, and check more of her everyday photos and Project Life pages on her blog.

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Photographs are windows to our memory. Reflections of our life. Reminders of our blessings. Each Wednesday we are featuring 5 personal favorite photos from a Creative Team member or a friend. These 5 photos will remind of us why photography is so beautiful and why documenting the everyday is so important. The goal is to leave us all a little more inspired to cultivate a good life and record it.

Our inspiration this weeks comes from Creative Team member Liz Tamanaha.

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I have a fierce affinity for white space. It started with scrapbook layouts. After years of experimenting with different styles I realized the pages that I most enjoyed looking at months (even years) down the road were the ones where I applied the less is more approach. Then I discovered the benefits of applying the less is more approach to managing a closet (a well curated wardrobe! Turns out that paring down was the answer – not getting a bigger closet. Who knew?). Most recently, I’ve been drawn to the use of white space in photography, thanks to the amazing work of photographers like Max Wagner and two professional favorites: Cindy Loughridge and Alice Gao.

I will be the first to admit that I can’t take a photo to save my life. Here’s where “white space” swoops in and save me (sort of). What I struggle with the most is how to frame my shot. Usually I just click away and hope that one of them will turn out decent. The more I click, the better my odds of getting a decent shot? Once I started shooting with the intention of incorporating more white space, my clicks became less hairy mary-like and more, well intentional.

And the added bonus of photos with white space? Lots of room to add text/journaling.

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Nikon D300, edited using RadLab by Get Totally Rad!

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iPhone 4S, processed using RadLab by Get Totally Rad!

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iPhone 4S, processed using RadLab by Get Totally Rad!

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This one isn’t so much white space as it is just a white background.

iPhone 4S, processed using RadLab by Get Totally Rad!

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Nikon D300, edited using RadLab by Get Totally Rad!

The last is a series of photos that spans three years. The first photo wasn’t taken with the intention of it ever becoming an annual thing though. I noticed a similarity between the photo taken in 2010 and this one taken in 2011, that’s when I thought it would be fun to try and make this an annual thing.

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You can learn more about Liz here, and check out more of her everyday photos and Project Life pages on her blog.

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Photographs are windows to our memory. Reflections of our life. Reminders of our blessings. Each Wednesday we are featuring 5 personal favorite photos from a Creative Team member or a friend. These 5 photos will remind of us why photography is so beautiful and why documenting the everyday is so important. The goal is to leave us all a little more inspired to cultivate a good life and record it.

Our inspiration this weeks comes from – Creative Team member Monica McNeill.

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This summer we spent a lot of time in the car taking my oldest son to and from camp. While my middle son is not old enough for camp, at 2 years old, he is old enough to want to be just like his brother. He insisted on taking a bat and glove with him because that is what Garrett was doing. Instead of focusing on my son with the bat and glove I decided to let the ballpark sign fill the picture to emphasize how little Owen is in this moment. By doing this I am now telling two stories with this picture.

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The first few weeks of my maternity leave my older boys were both still in school. This gave me & Travis a good bit of time to be still. I wanted to capture this special time together so I became very comfortable with self portraits. I took this picture by simply holding my iPhone above us. Your cell phone is a great tool for self portraits. It is light and easy to manipulate your angle. Also, there are so many different photography applications that you can then post process your pictures with. After I took this picture with my phone I used Instagram to blur out our surroundings and draw a stronger focus to Travis.

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With a toddler and an infant I spend a lot of my time sitting on the floor playing with them. This photo was taken on a lazy Saturday morning. I love this picture because it just hints at the chaos in this season of life: blocks on the floor, busy hands, little legs learning to kick and a Mama in the middle of it all. By creatively cropping the picture I got to decide which story to tell.

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At the beginning of summer my oldest son & I made a list of everything we wanted to do. He has been a fan of the zoo since he was tiny. But up until this visit he has not had a partner in crime to run ahead with. Once the baby & I caught up to the boys I took a series of shots of them at this ledge.This is my favorite because there are now two sets of feet balancing on the edge to get a better look.  Even though I can’t see their faces I will be able to look back on this picture and remember when five and a half years was a big age difference. These boys are going to grow so fast & I want to capture all the little details like chubby little legs versus longer lean legs and where the bottom of their shorts hit relative to each other.

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I am extremely uncomfortable asking people to pose for a picture. I much prefer to observe camera in hand and when those around me are immersed in “being them” – then begin to shoot. This was one of those moments. My dad & middle son were singing when all of a sudden Owen ran off. At first we thought he had tired of the game but then he brought them each a microphone. He and my Dad were so wrapped up in their moment they forgot I was there. These are the pictures that make me come alive.

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You can learn more about Monica here, and check out more of her everyday photos and Project Life pages on her blog.

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By the way, yesterday I was part of the Paperclipping Roundtable. We had a fantastic discussion on how to fit scrapbooking in our very busy lives, in case you’re interested in listening. Plus – I take a couple minutes on the show to explain more about what people can expect out of my upcoming online class – Project Real Life. Listen HERE.