Self Exploration: A Self Portrait Photography Project

Near the beginning of last year I joined a group called #p52radness. The aim of the group is to take a self portrait once a week. So often, particularly as mothers, we take photographs of the people we are with and the places we are while leaving ourselves out of the frame.

If I were to go back and look at our photographs from the past ten years I make an occasional appearance, usually when my Mom has been with us. Someone looking might think I was missing from my family’s life most of the time. One aim of this project, for me (each person has their own goals) is to try and be in the frame with my family more, but not just in a “selfie” kind of way.

Over the course of the year in this group I was so inspired by people’s amazing self portraits that were just capturing the beauty of themselves. This year, while I still want to make appearances in the photographs of our family photo album, I also want to explore the more artistic side of self portraits. So here goes!

I think all of these also encompass the WordPress weekly photo challenge of silence.

Clark County Kids Portraits

Every year it is ha been a tradition to take my kids to a park on Clark County to take their yearly portraits for their birthday. This year was no different, and while there are many beautiful places to take kids portraits in Clark County, I almost always end up at the same park with this little one.

There used to be a great wooden fence here that we included in our photographs and helped show a progression of her growth as well. Unfortunately it seems to have fallen down over the last year so we had to improvise a bit. I actually really liked the natural arches of these bushes and the brighter light that hit her from behind.

I spent a little time getting her to give me a more natural smile and love this grouping of that process:

We also tried out a few other spots to photograph her. There are some tall grasses that light up from behind at sunset.

Every year these portrait sessions take a different form and it is fun to see if they are more like a lifestyle photography session or a mini portrait session. It is also fun to see how her personality comes out each year. I always take each session as a bit of a quest to get genuine personality.

 

Portraits of a Nine Year Old in Portland

It has take a while for me to finally get around to taking my son’s nine year portrait photographs, but we finally did it despite is very clear protest. I really wanted a nice fall tree background so we headed down to Portland, Oregon near the airport to where I had seen a nice area of colorful trees recently.

Although my son did not want to cooperate we were able to catch a few portraits that will do. He tried hiding, climbing, making faces, and moving too much to get a clear photograph, but finally cooperated enough to satisfy this mamma and I am claiming victory and including this as my post for the weekly photography challenge!

Event Photography: Vancouver, WA Girlfriends Run for a Cure 2015

Last year I ran my first half marathon in honor of my best friend Margaret who died of breast cancer when she was 29 years old leaving behind two small children. I was also running for a friend from my first Mom’s group Jen who had been going though breast cancer treatment for months by October (go #teamunicornfarts). My Grandmother had also had breast cancer twice, but luckily it seems treatments helped her.

The race that I ran was called the Girlfriends Race for a Cure, put on in Vancouver, WA and it benefits more than one breast cancer group including Komen, the Kearney Breast Cancer Center through the pink brigade (men who have raised at least $500, the only way for men to participate), and the Children’s Center through the kids mini marathon.

Well unfortunately I have not been running as much this past year and was not up to running the race this year, but that made it possible for me to help out by taking photographs of the race when the volunteer coordinator for Why Racing, Kristi Cornwell, asked if I was available.

So in honor of my friends and family, the struggle they have both endured and succumbed to I did my own kind of 1/2 marathon this year, a photography marathon. 😉 I spent nearly 5 hours photographing the evening in downtown Vancouver, Washington which spans from Northwest Personal training, to the downtown farmers market, the Columbia River Esplanade, Fort Vancouver, and back. I did my own small share of running to try and make it to each of these spots on the course ahead of the bulk of the runners, but I was helped by a car for much of it. 🙂

The course is beautiful and it is such a supportive event, I was happy to be there in this role this year and we will see what next year brings.

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Black and White Photography Challenge: Week 5

For week five of my black and white photography challenge I am posting a photograph from my day to day life, some might call this lifestyle photography.

While I was getting some work done the other day my I got paints out for my daughter. She decided she was going to replicate all of one of her favorite books. She ended up stopping short, but enjoyed painting.

I snapped a few photographs with my phone and then edited them with Snapseed, an application you can download onto your phone.

I made a black and white version for this post and a color version for my Instagram (Livelovecreatebehappy is my user name if you want to go check it out). Let me know which you like better :-).

See last week’s black and white photograph at the post for week 4 of my black and white photography challenge.

Feel free to join in on the challenge and post a black and white photograph a week for 8 weeks. 🙂

Weekly Photography Challenge: Motion

A couple weekends ago I was able to follow along with another Portland photographer Gina Neal to photograph three ballerinas in a couple of Portland locations. We started at this green house located at the Pomarius Nursery in NW Portland.

I have to confess my camera has been acting up and this space was difficult for my lenses capabilities, but it was a lot of fun because everything these young women did was beautiful. Hopefully I will get around to posting a few more of the photographs from this day, but for now this one seemed to fit my needs for the weekly photography challenge motion. It could go along well with my 8 Week Black and White Photography challenge as well, but I am hopeful that I will add an additional photograph from this day to cover that one.

I hope you are having a good week.

Orange Photograph Collection: WP Challenge 2

Awesome color in fall.

The tigers birthday, October 31.

Here is a collection of orange photographs from my site over the years. I had fun going back and seeing what I had taken photographs of that featured orange. It was amazing to me how many photographs I had that were dominated by the color orange.

There are photographs from all over the country also: Portland, Neskowin, & Salem, Oregon, Camas & Vancouver, Washington, Maine, and New York.

The photographs include portraits, events, sunsets, landscapes, and of course flowers. 🙂

I hope you enjoy looking back at my collection of orange photographs from the past as much as I did. Have a good week!

If you want to join the weekly photography challenge check out post a day.

Weekly Photography Challenge: Reward

I took this photograph of my cutie checking out this daffodil she planted last fall. This was a part of a school wide garden project that has rewarded the kids and parents by blooming already.

I took this week’s photograph on my phone and used a new photo editing app called Snapseed to make adjustments. I have yet to decide if I like the application a whole lot, but it is fun to play with.

You can check out more of my weekly photography challenge entries in the tab above and if you want to join the challenge you can sign up to get challenge notice at WordPress post a day.

🙂

Weekly Photography Challenge: Sign

This last weekend was my fifth year participating in the Discover Pink walk in honor of my best friend Margaret. Here are a few photos from that walk.Below you see our yearly umbrella encircled with signs.

 

I want to add, the portrait of Margaret used on the umbrella and in our signs is by Becky Straub she is a great portrait photographer in Portland who also was very close with Margaret.

Weekly Photography Challenge: Between… post 2

This week I had the privilege of photographing this sweet new baby. He was a bit older, but very cooperative. I thought this particular photograph fits well with the photography challenge this week, between:

Here are a few more of the shots from this photo shoot.