We spent some time at Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City during the week the kids had Spring Break, so I am catching up on blog posts. We had a relatively good trip, and while I took a lot of photos, they are almost all within our hotel. I still haven't edited many. And as always, the 365 project dilemma- do you choose the photo that is technically best, or the photo that best represents that day? And then a new dilemma- my oldest child has been making some comments about how she doesn't want me to take her photo, or she doesn't want me to post her photo. Going forward, I feel like I have to find a way to respect that. Of course I won't stop taking photos of her, but I will ask her before I post anything that she is in. She is at an age where she is becoming very self-conscious, outgrowing a lot of things, and such a bright and serious girl anyway. How she is portrayed anywhere, in any capacity, is important to her. So of course I will let her keep as much control of that as possible. I do think she is starting to understand what photography means to me and why I do it, so I think she will work with me and allow me to include her in images if she feels good about the particular photo I want to share or post.
A few weeks ago I made the decision that I will make an income in some way from photography. Since making that decision, I have just been sitting, thinking, considering possibilities. As our youngest child has moved out of our bedroom and into his own space, we have a massive empty bedroom. It is so large that before we bought this house, someone had considered buying it to turn the bedroom into a yoga studio. We have talked about the possibility of making this a studio space. I have considered trying to work towards portfolio building with a small number of friends and acquaintances- I don't think I want to do traditional outdoor family portraits, but would consider documentary family photography. And while I would LOVE to shoot births, our current family situation makes the amount of availability I would need impossible to promise a birth client. With three kids and no local family support, I may need to wait on that until things change in some way or when the kids are all in school. There are several other possibilities (education or mentoring, eventually, or fine art prints, head shots, real estate photography, product photography, or doing something with mirrorless cameras... who knows what else). As I work towards making this change, I may need to try things that I have ruled out. And things I think I would love, I may not love. The next steps I will take will be website redevelopment and working on branding, and then just focusing on building my portfolio, and going through all of the educational resources available to me.
