Finding some pretty in my everyday!

These are some storytelling shots of our everyday! Lifestyle photography is all about finding the pretty in your reality. My reality – when my boys were young, and I just started learning photography (still learning – always), I was able to dress them in ‘photo friendly’ outfits, pick out their hairstyles, stage my images, etc. My younger one was such my muse since he was with me all day while my older one was at school. So we had fun. Nowadays, (such a weird word), let’s face it – they insist on their sports clothes 24/7, haircuts are out of my control, and all they do at home is play video games, watch sports and bottle flip!!! (I’m sure that sounds familiar to a lot of you!). Certainly NOT bad at all. I’m thankful that they are healthy, happy and they are MINE!

But – they are still young. So important to document! Just like babies and young toddlers, they grow and change (and learn how to complain EVERY time that camera comes out). So I tell them to ignore me. My goal is to still try to find the pretty in what goes on everyday – Capture their emotions, what they are doing, telling a story. Something that they will look back on years from now and talk about that Bengals game they were watching (I know nothing about sports – but they are football addicts just like their dad). Using composition, lighting, shadows, different angles and leading lines, I try to bring out the pretty in our what most people would consider to be ‘non photo worthy’ events.

By the way, photographers – I shot these with my Sigma 35 1.4 Art that I recently got. I was looking for a good wide angle prime and canon’s price tag just had me on hold for awhile. So I did some research and Sigma Art lenses seem to be very popular. In case you were wondering photographers – The Sigma Art Users facebook group is has a lot of really nice supportive people willing to share and discuss. I posted a question asking opinions about the 35 vs 25 and I was surprised and thrilled with how many photographers took time to give me their input! So the 35 became my choice and at almost 1/2 the cost of the canon version, I’m in love!