It feels good to know I'm still moving in the direction I picked, all those years ago!
I found myself about two hours deep into blog posts I'd never published. Some were half-written, some completed, others with a simple outline.. an idea.
As I read each one, I wondered why I never shared them.. but why I never deleted them either? I got to this post; a rather personal one; and realised, I wasn't ready for the world to see that part of me, in that moment.. but I saw the importance of it, and decided I needed to keep them for the day I would be ready to share.
It seems that today is that day; for this post, anyway!
Let me take you back to the Summer of 2015. Havanah was three and Brooklyn was one -- that's how long I've been blogging for!
I am a lover of all things 'Sue Bryce'. A fellow New Zealander and photographer, she captures people like no one else.
Her workshops are incredibly liberating and insightful, and she has a way of pushing people to be their best.
I had an "ah huh!" moment during one of her workshops.
"Photography is art. It doesn't need to be technically perfect. If it comes from a place of passion and ambition, and if your image connects with just one person, it's perfect. You only need to please one person, your client!"
Miss 3 likes to take off with our cameras and shoot everything in sight. She has taken some incredibly eerie photographs of tea sets and some really cute ones of her brother. One day, I'd taken the kids out in the backyard to play. Miss 3 sat on our deck and photographed the trees, her feet, and the sandpit.
"Look at my camera! I need to take a photo of you!" she demands.
I squat down, hair unwashed, pjs on, absolutely exhausted from the stinkin' hot Summer nights that Australia had brought the nights before. But in that moment, looking at my little baby girl behind this big camera that covered her entire head, I couldn't help but laugh.
That night, with the kids in bed and the aircon blasting, I loaded the images of that day from my camera's memory card onto my computer. Every image was either under exposed, over exposed, blurry, or out of focus. None of them would be 'useable' from a photographer point of view. But one caught my eye. The one she took of me.
"Wow!", I showed my husband, "She has actually taken a really good photo. It's out of focus but I love it!"
"That's a really nice photo of you. It shows your natural laugh."
This recently got me thinking. My 3 year old daughter produced an image during a rocky time - we'd just moved 45 minutes away to be closer to my husband's job, I had no family or friends close by, and I was physically and emotionally drained. But she captured a moment that proves that no matter how tough you're doing it, there is a positive, a silver lining.
Now, I'm no Cindy Crawford, but I love how she got a photo of "happy Mommy". It wasn't a forced, "quickly honey, Mommy's busy" smile. It was a true connection of happiness with my daughter.
Photographers talk about connection; it makes or breaks an image. I have to say, this absolutely made this image what it is, and made it worthy of holding onto for my kids as they grow old and I leave this world.
Quite often, as photographers, mums, grandmothers.. as women in general, we are always documenting the lives of our children, grandchildren, spouses, even pets! But we never stop and think about ourselves and what we leave behind for those people when we're gone. This has been the answer I needed to confirm the kind of work I want to produce as a photographer.
I want to amaze, captivate, connect. I want someone to look at the photographs I've taken in 40 years time and say, "Wow, mum was so beautiful" or to pull out one of my albums in 20 years time & say "I can't believe our baby is graduating tomorrow". I want these moments for people and I am so excited to start giving them!
Erin .x
Photographer: My own Miss 3 Model: One tired Momma
Erin Michele Thomson ∙ Tauranga Photographer ∙ info@erinmichele.co.nz
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