flower child | thoughts on personal work

I love doing personal work. I love my clients dearly and enjoy shooting them, but there's something so freeing about just shooting for myself. There's no pressure to perform. I'm free to let my creativity run wild. Give me a model or two and I could shoot all day! I love having an idea in my head and making it come to life. Doing this helps me learn who I am as a photographer and also hone in on my style. Afterwards I pick everything apart. What works? What doesn't? Why? Art is very much so achieved by trial and error. There are rules to art, but they are meant to be broken. I could be an expert on all the technical aspects of photography and never be an artist. I could know all the rules and still create a boring image. An image needs a spark of life to truly become art. How does that happen? That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Anyway, it just so happens that I have a perfect excuse to do some personal work every time I visit my family. A while back my momma asked me to help her update her photo wall of us kids. I've been trying to do some portraits of each of my siblings whenever I can. This time was my littlest sister's turn. I love photographing my family. My siblings especially are so photogenic. My momma was always taking photos of us growing up, so I guess that made us well trained for the camera! (Seriously, you should check out the plethora of albums stuffed in my momma's cabinets!) However, I'm certain my baby sister received a double portion of the photogenic gene. She has a natural grace that flows beautifully. I can mold and move her any way I like. She's like clay in my hands. Sometimes I'd look up from my LCD to find her in a perfect pose. What other 9 year old does that? I could go on and on cute her little freckled face, but I'll let you see how adorable she is instead.

Just a warning, I couldn't pick  favorite! :)