New Project: Monthly Blog Circle

I have met some of the most amazing, supportive women on the photography site, Clickinmoms (CM).  It’s a community full of photographers of all skill levels.  I first found CM three years ago.  I had only had my DLSR for a few months and had no idea how to use it!  It was a shame to spend all that money on a nice piece of equipment, yet only use the automatic functions that were pre-programmed…and that awful green box…auto!  What I did know is that I wanted to take better pictures of my son while he was competing in his sporting events and using the auto functions weren’t giving me the look or control that I was hoping for.  I jumped right in to learning everything I possibly could, starting with the exposure triangle and how to shoot in manual.  I started my own personal project taking a photo every day and began getting requests to photograph friends and family.  My love for photography grew even deeper and it was so wonderful having a great support system at home to encourage me along, but let’s face it….Brian and James didn’t really understand  anything about photography and they quickly got bored with listening to me go on and on about it 🙂  By this point, I had been on the Clickinmoms forum for over a year and had taken a couple of their amazing, in-depth workshops.  It was by chance that I would get paired with some of the most fantastic, talented women who were also in the same 201 level workshop.  During the workshops, participants are constantly interacting with one another, giving support and critique and learning about each other’s families and lives beyond the world of photography.  This particular group didn’t cut ties as soon as the workshop was over.  Instead, we created our own small group where we could continue to get to know each other and learn and grow together.  These women come from all walks of life and are in all different stages of our photography journeys.  Some are very talented moms with cameras and some are running busy photography businesses, even while working another job outside the home.  I am proud and honored to call them my friends and not a day goes by that I don’t communicate with them in some way!

We finally decided to create a monthly blog circle.  Each month we will have a theme and each person will capture that theme in their own style.   This will give us the some inspiration and incentive to work on different photography skills and genres while capturing things important to us.  We will be posting a link to the next person on the list so as you follow my journey, you will be able to follow my friends in their journeys as well <3

Our theme this month is composition.  Composition is one of the most important elements in photography.  I am currently involved in the Composition & Creativity 301 workshop at Clickinmoms.  This workshop is very intense and has already had me taking a deep look at the way I approach my photography.

Here are a few of my favorite images demonstrating different composition techniques from the past month:

Use of negative space

Rule of thirds/subject running into the frame

Using shadows to eliminate a distracting background

Subject within 25% of the frame

Negative space and shallow depth of field to isolate the subject

Thanks for checking out my post this month.  Follow along our blog circle by checking out the gorgeous work from my dear friend Kristen from Nestalgia Photography in Texas HERE.