selfie craze....

hey everybody! so i am not a great blogger we all know that...and i am okay with that. i have tons of to do's to keep me busy forever lol, but i did want to blog about this.

if you have a smartphone you most likely know about selfies. instagram is filled with them as is twitter and facebook. personally i'm not a fan of the selfie scratch that i don't have a problem with the pictures its the word i don't care for (or "selfies" that show a little too much) sorry getting off track here....it used to be that if you had a camera and no one was around you turned it around arms outstretched and took a picture to remember whatever you were doing or where you were at that time. i love that. that is memory keeping, documenting your life, remembering the moment.

this past week heidi swapp had a little challenge on her blog to take selfies and hashtag them #hsloveyourselfie. i played along because you know i love heidi swapp and i love pictures. there were questions for each day to consider/answer and then post a selfie with those thoughts.

if you are like me you may not love pictures of yourself. despite my dislikes of the way i look i am sure to be in pictures with my family and drive them crazy with how many i make them take. so even though i don't like my nose and my eyes disappear when i smile and of course as with a lot of woman i had kids and carry extra weight and have tiger skin, i want to remember right now. i want my kids to have pictures of me with them as they grow and when i am gone they will still have those images. as woman we tend to only notice the things we don't like about ourselves, then in turn we don't like pictures of ourselves. well this BUGS me so stinking much! as a photographer i try to capture the most beautiful things in your life, you and your family. as you are. perfectly imperfect and beautifully real, but maybe a little more makeup than usual lol. seriously though i've watched woman pick themselves apart in pictures, and i'm here to say STOP.
YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL...all of you, every single part. you are fearfully and wonderfully made, not just when you were born and a child this applies for your whole life. i think you become even more beautiful as you age.
What if we saw ourselves as God does. As enough. As beautiful.

I've seen and heard it so very much as a photographer...as soon as most women get their final images back they immediately start picking out what they hate about themselves.  I always edit them and think oh man I love this shot, oh wow look at that moms smile when she is looking at her kids, How beautiful! But what you see is eek i hate my chin or uggg I look terrible. Well I don't see it. I think your crazy, but I won't tell you. Lol well I might !

The bad thing about doing this to ourselves is this. I have seen it countless times. One scenario it played out in was this...two teenage daughters 13 and 15 looking at their pictures I took and saying i look cute! Oh your outfit is great in that or wow look at your eyes! Then the mom joins in looking at the pictures. Mom says ewe look at my hair it's so flat, ugh I hate my smile look at my teeth. Guess what happened when the next picture came up...the daughters started to do the same thing. Ewe my arm looks weird, I hate my teeth too. Etc.

Did you see what happened? How can we as moms tell our girls how beautiful they are and cute and amazing and then expect them to believe it if what they hear us say about ourselves is always negative.

We have imperfections. Everybody does. But our daughters love us and in their eyes we are beautiful. In His eyes we are beautiful. So why not in our own.

My hope every time i have a shoot is that whatever woman is in front of my camera feels amazing and beautiful! That she lives in the moment of  forever memories being made. That she would see what I see an amazing and beautiful thing, what God sees a woman created in His image who is enough, who is beautiful.


so if you are still reading, thanks for taking the time to read this and if it resonates with you feel free to share it. remember to get in those pictures today and tomorrow, even if its a selfie! this post
has been something ive thought about for a little over a year now and just never took the time to sit down and write it so thank you heidi swapp for the fun this past week and inspiration!


and what would a post about selfies be with out some selfies, lol
so here are my selfies from instagram for #hsloveyourselfie

 

 now go take a picture!

11 month little beauty

my littlest one turned 11 months old on may 6th. . .time flies by way too fast. for her 11 month pictures i had an idea a few weeks ago. . .since she was born with so much hair and it has continued to grow . . .this happened

olivia mae 10 months...

another design team project for whim so doodle using the awesome favorite things collection by heidi swapp.

i love love love how this turned out! i used two memory files, and the one on the inside i did an accordion fold to make it into a little book inside the bigger memory file

 here's a close up of the accordion fold, after folding it i glued double sided papers into each fold inside and on the outside i put ribbon and trim in the folds then glued the whole thing in the memory file

 i left the papers 12 inches long so i could fold them and have interactive elements

             

design team work....

i just took our easter album to whim so doodle along with a few other design team projects. in case you cant get to the store or live out of state here is a look inside....

once again heidi swapp has done an amazing job on memory keeping products that are easy to use and so much fun to work with! go out to your local scrapbook store or craft and hobby store and get yourself some pretty stuff to make your memories look amazing!