Baby girl...

I am currently taking a class from Jonathan Canlas at BYU (yes, yes, I was supposed to graduate in December.  I deferred graduation to take Jon's class) and our first assignment was to photograph personal work to show our "voice" or "vision"...AKA something about us or something important to us.  For the class we are shooting medium format film cameras, so I was a bit nervous about how my first roll would turn out as I have never shot medium format before (besides the Holga, but that doesn't really count).  I was happy with the results, but I definitely have a lot of learning and practicing to do.

The class is good.  Jon has a huge personality, and I think he'll push me to produce good work so I'm excited for it.  Here are the images I shot:

So duh, of course I photographed baby girl.  She's so cute and fun and I love spending ALL of my time with her.  I would have included Andrew, but I was a bit rushed to get this assignment shot and he had to work all of the times I was photographing.

What's my voice?  My vision?  Family, memories, creating relationships with my loved ones.  It's interesting to be sitting here now writing that; to be completely proud of that fact that I'm a mom and wife, and want to spend most of my time being just that--a mom and wife.  It's interesting because I didn't always feel proud of wanting that for myself. When I was in the photo program before I got pregnant with Reese, I used to be embarrassed to say I wanted to be a stay at home mom with a PORTRAIT photo business on the side.  Because it was so 'typical Mormon' to get married at 21 and have a baby by 24, and then stay home and be a mom.  I didn't want to be just another mormon girl walking down the same old stereotypical road and give up my dreams of becoming a successful photographer.

Ha, that brings up a memory.  This one time I had a conversation with a guy at my work about something very much along these lines.  He brought up how silly the girls were in our programs who were spending the time taking art classes (particularly photography or graphic design) just to go have babies and not become professionals in their fields.  

"Oh, I couldn't agree more.  Why would they do that?  Such a waste of time, and so stereotypical.  Why not wait to have kids until LATER...I mean, we have the rest of our lives to have kids! Me?  Oh, I'm definitely getting my BFA and I want to move to NYC or LA and make money. Of course!" 

I lied for our entire 45 minute conversation, all the while knowing I was about 3 months pregnant and not planning on getting my BFA, or EVER living in a big city, or ever doing anything but having my own portrait business.  I was just so scared that he would think I wasn't as talented, as legit, or as hard working as any other photographer in our program.  Because the truth was, I was just as good as many of the students in my program.  I had (still have, I think) potential to rock, but I was choosing to focus most of my energy on a family.

And you know, I'm really glad I did.  And I'm glad I got over my silly worry about what people think of my decisions.  I have learned to not be (quite as) afraid to express my opinions on matters that mean something to me (like becoming a mom).  My face might get red when I speak up, but hey, I'm speaking up.  And that's a start!

*Technical: Fuji Pro 400, shot on Pentax 67, 90mm 2.8

Still Life

Last semester I took a still life class.  I learned I kind of suck at still life, but it was still pretty fun.  I tried to do things that were more entertaining for me to do than looking AWESOME, so hopefully that comes across.

My favorite thing about still life was how peaceful and therapeutic it could be.  Basically it's 2 hours in a studio problem solving, photographing, and thinking.  It was nice.

The rest of the mother portraits

Alright, here are the rest of the mother images I took for my fine art project!

Fertility Treatment/Natural Conception

Breast Fed/Bottle Fed

Circumcised/Not Circumcised

Vaginal Delivery/C-Section

Working Mom/SAHM

Public School/Home School

The last several women I photographed didn't end up in the photos I hung, but I wanted to include them here.  I loved photographing these women and their beautiful children.  It was the most fun talking to them about the point of my project and hearing their thoughts and opinions on the pressures of motherhood and how to raise a child.  I learned a lot.