Expectations vs Reality

    I recently decided that I wanted to start blessing people with my photography. I thought I would offer some portrait sessions to some friends and family. My love for photography has been growing recently, but, pictures of flowers and Blessing are getting a little boring. I need to expand my repertoire. I was going to book a session for a family member this Saturday, but by Wednesday I was exhausted and I knew I would have no people skills by Saturday. Then I decided to bless myself with a portrait session with Blessing.

    I spent the next two days getting excited and building myself up for this photoshoot. I wanted to mix a sunrise photoshoot with a portrait set. I've never had people in my sunrise shoots before so I wanted to see how it would go. I had all these ideas for poses and such, but it's harder and more time-consuming when you are both the photographer and the object of the photo. Blessing was a trouper though, she patiently stood around smelling the flowers while I set up the camera and sat nicely during the pictures themselves. What would I do without this dog?

    Turns out, not so easy. Guess I should have done more homework on how to do it. Basically, it's a lot easier if the sun is completely in the sky and not in your face or creating shadows from other angles. I'm sure there is a way to make it all work, I just need to figure out what it is. I also thought that if I  put the camera in portrait mode vs manual mode it would handle all the settings itself, and I wouldn't need to worry about my iso setting. Wrong again. After a little while, I was frustrated and no longer enjoying
myself. We packed up the car and headed home. I tried to convince myself to think of it as a learning experience and not as a failure. But I'm a perfectionist, and when you are a perfectionist, it can be hard to look at a frustrating situation and see it as a learning experience. Before leaving the park, I took a quick inventory of the pictures I had taken and found one that I was happy with and figured with a little editing it would be pretty.

    There is always next time though, and I will plan a little better. It's funny though, I am the queen of planning and organizing. Although now that I am reflecting on it, I realize that my plans don't always work. I tend to overpack my time and energy. I tend to think I can do more stuff in an unreasonable time frame. The really ironic part is that I have friends who are also great planners, but their execution fails or at least lacks much of time time. What I'm trying to say is that a) I need to learn from my mistakes, and b) I need to give others more grace in areas where they struggle because no one is perfect.

    So what areas in your life did you once consider yourself supreme to others? Do you also need some self-reflection? I assume the answer is yes, because, no one is perfect.

    I hope this post finds you at the end of a restful weekend and ready to take on the challenges of next week.

God bless

~Hannah

 The one and only good photo from our photoshoot.