life lately

A few years back, I made a conscious decision to stop frequenting other photographers’ blogs. There were numerous driving forces behind the decision:

1. I don’t want my inspiration to come mainly from other photographers. I want it to come from life.

2. It was wasting a lot of my time.

3. It was fostering within me feelings of jealousy and a spirit of competition. It doesn’t sound very pretty to say that … but it’s the truth! And since I don’t like either of those feelings, I knew I needed to nip it in the bud.

4. It was making me feel sad. The bulk of the photographers that I was following were female and close to my age. When they would post about their lives, they would post about their children, husbands, large homes, etc.  I have a wonderful life … but these are all things I don’t have. And it just kind of made me sad. I know that I’m not alone in this arena. These days, with all the social media out there, lots of people are suffering from “facebook envy”. People post the highlights of their life, and if it’s the things you don’t have, it can make you feel like others have more than you.

So, I pulled away from blogs. And I’ve pulled away from my personal facebook page. Both of these decisions were good for me. I also started my own little personal blog where I go and focus on joy. I love spending a few minutes there each day.

These days I’m a little bit clueless as to how many photographers are in the area. And I don’t really know the big trends in the industry. I am, however, feeling more and more tuned into happiness, my clients, and the type of art that I want to produce for them. So, that’s really good! I’m also slowly but surely working on remembering to document my own life … simple and quiet though it may be. It’s full of small little delights and lots of big dreams. Lovely people and a solid hope for the future.

So this year, I told myself that I’d try and remember to do a collage post at the end of the month with pictures from my own life. Due to the fact that I just refuse to upgrade to a smart phone (ha, I’m such a rebel!) or carry an ipad (again, whew … what a rebel!) I still carry around with me a little point and shoot camera. So most pictures were taken with it …

Happy Friday!

Kate