Stuck In a Rut

One of the reasons that I love taking pictures of families and children that are not my own is because I feel like I can be more creative with them. Actually driving to a location and letting them run around in cute clothes brings something out in me.

I get very tired of shooting my kids in the same clothes (*snort* Jocelyn), posing the same way (that would be Jaina), and doing the same thing (Jayce and video games) in the same back yard or living room day in and day out.

I hate feeling this way. And that means something has to change.

Jocelyn asked me to push her in the swing the other day. I love being outside with the kids but pushing little ones in the swing gets a little monotonous. I grabbed my camera to give me something to do while I pushed.

Then I took the same pictures the same way I always do when she's in the swing.

And don't get me wrong... I think these pictures show an incredibly adorable three year old Jocelyn.

But they don't look any different than the ones I took last Fall and Summer. Same lens, similar angles, always back lighting...

So I was determined to change it up a bit. I ran into the house and grabbed my 24 mm wide angle lens and my 85mm portrait lens. And I just played around. I moved away from the front of the swing and just started snapping pictures.

Some of the images were blurry. Some of them had a horrible composition. Some of them caught Jocelyn with a crazy expression on her face. But, they were different. Some captures were "happy accidents" and some shots were purposefully taken.

Jocelyn didn't care what I was doing as long as I kept pushing that swing when it would lose momentum.

I think, overall, using a wide range of lenses and angles captured more of our "story" of being outside in the 70 degree sunshine in March.

I'm not sure this was enough to completely get me out of my boring photography rut with my kids... but maybe it was enough to bump the cart a little bit :)