Art

As you know if you've read much of this blog, or know me,  I love taking pictures of Ben.  Well, I love taking pictures. period.  I have taken a few classes and tried to take a little time here and there to learn my camera better.  Still, some of my favorite pictures that I have taken were before the SLR.  Ryan is a great amatuer photographer and though I get frustrated by how much he knows in terms of how our camera works, photography is a shared passion that brings us together.  The decent skills we share between us is a huge part of why we haven't had more professional pictures of Ben taken.  With limited financial resources we always wonder whether the professional pictures will be better enough to justify the cost and become a financial priority for us.  The ones we had taken recently were a bargain by any standard and we do appreciate the different perspective.
Ryan also compliments my photography to others which means the world to me.  As relationships grow and get busy, little things like that mean more and more.  You reading, honey??
Several of my friends love taking pictures too and also have SLR's.  They have different passions and skill levels but it brings us all together.  In my mommy world, photography often takes center stage and several of our friends are also professional photographers.  The non-professionals among us deliberate over who we might choose to capture our kids and families, trade links of "amazing" photographers we live far away from or could never afford, and as with too many things in mommy-land, criticize others for their choices.  What's worse than this mommy-land criticism is the criticism among the photographers.  They laugh at and belittle each other and say very hurtful things about other peoples art.   I am not writing this claiming to have never done the same, but maybe we all need to take a step back for some perspective.  First, most of what we are judging are people's families....the ones they love as much as we love ours and who are we to judge them for wanting to capture a moment in their own family story.  Second, what's affordable or within reach to one might never be considered by another.  I am confident a $40 package at K-Mart is just as endeared by a mom in Springfield as a $4000 shoot by a mom in LA.  Finally, and here the edges blur, photography is art.  I will be the first to say that while fulfilling an important need, lots of mall-run photography studios are not producing art.  As for the professional photographers with studios or shooting clients in parks or neat locales around the world, to them their craft is most often art.  If anything these professionals should applaud one another for making a living or attempting to while doing what they love.
So the pics that prompted this post are below.  From any skills perspective they belong in the trash.  Again the lines of art blur when we are talking about pictures of people we love.  Art or not, I love these.    I love the subject and how the light reminds me of the sunshine of the day.
So, I'll vow here to take a step back and be a little less critical and think about the art of it all.  You with me?