Oh, photography.

I keep trying to brand my photography a certain way…and keep making new goals for myself, then change my mind when I realize it’s not what I want. It’s hard when there are million (and that’s not exaggerating) other photographers out there and more pop up EVERY DAY. And the point is, it doesn’t matter if this was my dream in life before those people even touched a camera…if I forget why I wanted to take pictures in the first place, I might as well stop altogether.  I keep reminding myself I should not strive to be like them; I need to push myself to be MYSELF and learn from my own mistakes. In all reality, I would rather fail as the best version of myself than be a successful copy of someone else.I’ve realized this past year to not take on any projects that do not represent who I am as a person because then it will stress me out and feel like work. I really don’t like to pose people, and I really hate making kids smile when they really don’t want to. I want to capture the elements beyond what everyone else sees or wants to portray. Every person has a story to tell through their eyes and I want to capture a small part of it. I’m not really sure how I’m going to go about this, but that’s what’s in store for my future. I want to be challenged, I just don’t want to change who I am as a person and photographer. I feel like my life has been this crazy, busy mess lately. So, this weekend I came home and decided the best thing to do is to take pictures. Since I did not have any sessions scheduled I forced my little sister, Naomi, to be my model for a while. It was refreshing to just shoot for fun since I haven’t really had a chance to do it these days. My little siblings were half of the reason I started taking pictures and it was nice to be reminded of what really matters.