Jan
16
2013There’s a group of kids, none over 15 tender years, standing on the stage. They’re singing this favorite from Rich Mullins at an ordination service for two men in our church.
The same song that Amy Smallwood sang quietly while walking through miles of wilderness, when she didn’t think we could hear her. 70+ miles with 60+ pounds on my back in the North/South Carolina early fall humid heat. How do you keep walking when you think you can’t make it up the next rise? When you have to ask for help from the boys just to get your pack on your shoulders again for over a week before you can manage to lift it on your own?
But I heard her. And those words resonated.
Sometimes the climb can be so steep, I may falter in my steps but never beyond Your reach… and step by step You’ll lead me, and I will follow You all of my days.
There’s so many hard days as a mom where I just drop everything. Faltering hardly begins to describe the mess I can make. I yell, rage, hurt feelings, let them cry too long, act unwisely, and just can be so selfish. It’s not pretty. Oh, but the grace there to start again is precious. The grace that I don’t have to have it together because He did perfect for me.
I think the biggest thing for me right now to keep in focus is those little faces.
That Aeralind Grace with her crazy tired chatter.
That Bronwyn Hope who just climbs right up into your space uninvited.
That Sedryn Justice with his mischievous smirk.
This is my biggest God-sized Dream (more of what God wants for me in my life). My biggest area of calling. Those little eager faces waiting for me to speak grace.
That said, there’s this part of me called to photograph the beautiful-mess of others. This unexpected calling blossoming right in the middle of the chaos of early childhood. A timing so unexpected for me that my breath is still taken away. And the following of both of those callings, mothering and photographing, is just Step by Step. Moment by moment. Never beyond His reach.
Holley asked us God-sized dreamers to write just a bit about one step we’ve taken for our dreams since this started. All of mine are small. Some took more time than others. I’ve written 6+ Beginner Photography Class posts when what I really want to do is teach hands on with a small group. It’s a start. I’ve photographed a few sessions for free and a paid one or two. I’ve volunteered to photograph 3 single moms a year, because really the beautiful strength in their day to day mess just takes my breath away.
But none of the steps I take are more important than guarding my calling of motherhood to those three precious faces. So I’m putting this out here in the world for you to see and hold me accountable.
As I pursue this dream, I will strive by God’s grace
- Not to edit a session while my children are awake
- Not to take on more than 3 sessions per month
- to continue to capture my beautiful-messy life both with the lens and the pen (or keyboard).
I just wanted you to know that I don’t think there’s a more important step for me to take right now than these.
Hop on over to Holley’s and see what steps others are taking.
Jan
03
2013The laundry lies in heaps and baskets all over the house. It’s crumpled and rumpled but clean.
I’m a lot like my laundry, and I have a feeling you might be too. I’m washed clean, forgiven of all my sins, yet I lie rumpled in the mess of the everday. Somtimes I’m too crippled to do anything at all. I feel like my day to day life is filled with so much sin that I couldn’t possibly be used by Him.
Yet, what I’ve learned most in the last year is that God uses me best when I expose those messy rumpled bits of daily life and sin. The fact of the matter is that I still use my crumpled clean laundry; God still uses my messy-beautiful sin-filled life.
For a little over a month now, I’ve been encouraged in a secret Facebook group of God-sized dreamers. When I applied for this God-sized Dreams Team, I’m pretty sure I wrote my dream as “to photography 12 session in the next year.”
But our facilitator-leader, Holley Gerth, had us dig way deeper from day one. Holley made us explore our strengths, our skills, and the tug on our hearts for a certain group of people. That culminated this week in a LIFE statement.
And here mine is.
I believe God has created and called me to reveal to women with photography and words that our most beautiful moments are the messy everyday vulnerable stories.
As you can probably tell, I’ve been doing a lot of reorienting since buying my Quiet Graces domain. I’m trying to streamline things around this central purpose. Trying to ignore the fears and life a life that follows this purpose by God’s grace alone.
I want to tell you the hard stories about my days. I want to share with you the joy in everyday moments. I want to capture images that speak of beautiful-mess grace. I want to teach you to use your camera to capture those moments, too.
But I think there might be a bit of quiet in this space for a season. Cautious quiet as I listen to His voice. The type of quiet that is learning to use her own crumpled clean (and dirty) laundry for the glory of God.
Right now, I’ll commit to two maybe three post a week. My Beginner Photography Class posts on Tuesdays and on Wednesdays I’ll try to post in a way that scares me as I work toward this God sized dream. There will be a post or two on client sessions as they’re completed on Fridays or funny kid stories as they occur. And perhaps Multitude Monday posts if I can keep track of my gratitude journal. But mostly there will be the quiet of a heart seeking Him hard for a season.
Jan
01
2013(Note this class is from 2013. Each class lesson is still below but you will not receive any instructor feedback and the Flickr Group is no longer active.)
I’ve had a camera in my hands for the better part of 12 years now. I was a 16 year old kid chasing around my babysitting charges. A 17 year old kid spilling chemicals all over the darkroom. An 18 year old kid hand coloring a black and white image. A 20 something recording those crazy moments on your dorm that bring so much laughter. A mid 20s mom taking pictures of her kiddos. 
For two years now, I’ve been called to pursue this craft professionally. I’m not making a whole lot of money right now and, honestly, a lot of my clients are friends and family who are receiving a gift. Money isn’t really what I’m after. No, my end goal is to have a client laugh over the capture of that one face their their kiddo makes that is so them, to walk into a client’s house and see that frozen in time moment right above the mantle, or to give that mama an album exploding with her whole family while she weeps tears of joy. Those are the moments that make my soul sing. I love giving the gift of photography to clients and friends.
Teaching the Craft
When I pause to dream about where this business might go, there’s always a tug on my heart to teach. To gather a group of friends around me and teach them to capture their own memories. Give a man a photo and they’ll cherish the memory forever. Teach a man to take photos and they’ll capture memories forever. I’ve tried numerous times to do just this, but in this season of life it’s just hard to do. Eventually, I’d like to host (or be a part of) one or two day retreats to help new photographers learn their craft, but that time is not now. Yet while participating in Holley Gerth’s God-Sized Dreams Team and reading her early release of the Do What you Can Plan, I realized that maybe I can slowly move toward this dream. What if I start compiling my resources now? What if I invite you, my readers, to explore the craft of photography with me in a free beginner photography class right here through this blog? 
Would you join me in a Free Beginner Photography Class?
I’ll commit to posting on one topic every Tuesday for the next 52 weeks. You can stop by as often as you like and soak up as much information as you dare. I’ll throw in 20 or so large assignments and a mini assignment for each post as we cover the material and host a Flickr Group so we can see your finished projects and chart your growth. As I watch you grow, I’ll invite some of you to guest post your images and contribute your learning.
What will the Class Cover?
Here’s a brief list of upcoming topics. As I post in this series, I’ll update this list with a link to each individual post for easy reference.
- Assignment #1: Learning to Critique Photos
- How Cameras Work
- Camera Types
- Photography Critique Assignment Link-Up
- Camera ISO and Assignment #2
- Shutter Speed and Assignment #3
- Apeture and Assignment #4
- Depth of Field: Further Study
- Camera Light Meters and Metering Modes
- Program Mode
- White Balance
- Introduction to Storytelling with Images
- Rule of Thirds
- Student Images
- Leading Lines
- Try a Different Angle
- Detail Images
- Diptych and Triptych
- Lens Type: Zoom or Fixed Focal Length
- Lenses: Differences on a Full Frame and Crop Sensor Body
- Lenses: Focal Lengths-Wide to Telephoto
- 6 Month Student Reviews
- Camera Lenses: Recommendations and Buying
- Using your Camera in Manual Mode: Exposure Triangle
- Photography Exposure Stops
- Manual Mode Workflow
- Exposure Bracketing
- Setting Exposure in Manual Mode: the Zone System
- Painting with Light: a lighting overview
- Natural Light
- Front Lighting
- Side Lighting
- Back Lighting
- Available Light
- Modifying Light Part 1: Reflectors and Diffusers
- Modifying Light Part 2: On Camera Flash
- Portrait Lighting
- RAW or JPEG?
- Changing your Perspective
- Final Assignment and Announcements
- Nailing Focus
- Editing Software Overview
- Basic Editing: Brightness and Contrast
- Basic Editing: Magic Histograms with Levels and Curves
- Basic Editing: Converting to Black and White
- Basic Editing: Layer Masks
- Editing a Naturally Dark Image
- Final Assignment Due Date and Action/Preset Love
- Quick Clean Edits in Lightroom and Photoshop Elements
- The Finish Line and My Final Project
- Amber’s Final Project
- Teddy’s Final Project
Please let me know in the comments below what you’d like to learn over the next 52 weeks and I’ll be sure to include it! I can’t wait to see where this journey will carry us!
Dec
15
2012
The Sugar Plum Fairy is being lifted dramatically into the air when she looks at me bright-eyed.
“I want to do that. I will practice hard.” This little 5 year old, whom I barely know, she bares her soul at this display of God-glory on stage before us. A dream is born. And I, who know so little about this child, am entrusted with a God-sized dream. Maybe just a dream for her child-heart and, yet, maybe one she will be called to complete.
I tell her she could do it with God’s help and I lift the camera from my lap to freeze the Sugar Plum Fairy mid-air without the aid of a flash.
* * *
In the car on the way over, while my daughters sucked thumbs in the back seat, she had told me all about how the boy dancers lift the girl dancers so high up. She told me how scary that was.
“But when I am a grown up ballerina, I won’t be scared. I will be brave.”
“Sweet girl, being brave doesn’t mean you aren’t scared. Being brave means you do it even though you’re scared.” I tell her in return. She shrugs my comment off saying she truly meant she wouldn’t be scared.
Yet hours later, balled up on my bed with the stomach flu, I can’t shrug it off.
Being brave means you do what God calls you to do, even though you’re scared.
* * *
Little girl dreams, like the one she shared with me, have never left my heart. Those rolls of film spent and the ink spot permanently smeared on my fingers, they’ve left indelible marks on my heart. The desire to create is sometimes overwhelming. A week ago I was asked to sum up this desire in two words by a fellow God-sized dreamer. The words came immediately. I am called to “Capture Joy”, to reflect that joy back to the One who gives all gifts.
So I pick up a pen, curled under a blanket with my body so weak with temporary pain I can hardly stand, and I do just that:
Capture the joy of a little girl’s childhood dream and the bravery of this one woman being called to pursue her dream even though she’s scared.
