Y'all I'm participating in the Keepin' It Real Blog Circle TWO months in a row....who am I?!?! I mean I only went all of 2014 (and some of 2015) not participating even though I had signed up!!! This month's theme was "Real Necessity" which is absolutely perfect for me as it goes along with why I am pushing myself to participate in this monthly blog circle. Before I get on to my take on this month's theme don't forget that this is a blog circle after all so please read all the way to the bottom to find the link to the next photographers post to see how she interpreted this month's theme.
This year I am trying to focus editing on my own images in as close to real time as possible. Getting my personal images off of my hard drive and in to a book or on the wall is a "real necessity." It is a necessity for me to remind myself why I fell in love with photography (documenting my kids!), it is a necessity for my children to see themselves and our love for them in photos, and it is a necessity for our family to relive our fondest memories by looking at the images we have to document them.
Our recent trip to Disney World in January really pushed me to see if I could stay on top of our family's images and do something with them fairly quickly. But before I get in to all of that let's take a step back in to my picture prep for Disney World. You see as a photographer I know that I can take better pictures with my "big" camera and I can do fantastic things to those images with editing. The problem with my big camera though is that it is quite literally big and I am the only one in my family who knows how to properly use it, and to be quite honest taking a picture with the best equipment available to me wasn't the point of documenting this trip. The point was to simply have photographs of our family's first trip Disney. So before we even left for Florida I decided that I would only take my big camera to a couple events and never in to the theme parks. I decided I would document most of our trip with my iphone, GoPro, and Samsung NX300. Additionally, we bought the Disney Photo Pass which I can not recommend enough (its a service that allows you to get all the digital files the Disney photographers take).
Looking back on the trip and the images from the trip I can tell you that I do not regret for a second leaving my big camera at the hotel the majority of the time! I so enjoyed being in the moment with my family and simply snapping photos with my phone, a point and shoot, or even asking the Disney photographers to take a picture for us using their camera since we would get the digital files. Even with simplifying what I would be shooting with I still ended up 1500 pictures!!!! That number of images is daunting. I knew I needed to push through and get these images together and in an album as I felt it was a real *necessity* to relive the week with my girls' via images and discuss all the memories we made before time took the memories away. So, back to those 1500+ images....what to do WHAT TO DO!!!! I quickly went through the images and selected the best of the best just like I do after my sessions, but then I decided I would only lightly edit the images. This meant no headswapping to make sure all my girls' were looking at the camera, no skin smoothing, no extensive editing, no tricks! I tweaked exposure, saturation, and white balance here and there and was able to get down to a few hundred images for our book. Our book arrived this week and we have loved re-living our trip with the girls. Being able to have the book so close to the trip has been amazing as I can see then remember more things from the trip as they flip through the pages :)
I hope you all enjoy looking through these images from our Disney vacation. Please remember the look of these images isn't reflective of my typical professional photographic style as the camera used and editing (or lack there of) are very different, but that is the point for this post. It is a "real necessity" for me to occasionally push photographic perfection aside and simply document my family's life and do something with the resulting images!
Enjoy!
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This image sums up why we took our trip at this particular time. Our oldest was just shy of 5 during the trip, and so full of imagination. Our first day at Disney was started with a breakfast with the Princesses and at the end she was asked to raise her wand and make a wish. As you can see she raised her wand high and closed her eyes as hard as she could to carefully make a wish. I am so glad we were able to make this trip while she is in this stage where all the Disney magic is real.
I made the girls' these dresses for our first day. I like to think they were proud to wear something their mama made for them :) This is also a perfect example of me not headswapping to ensure everyone was looking at the camera and had a perfect smile ;)
After we finished up breakfast with the princesses it was finally time to head to Magic Kingdom!
Randal Jean LOVED the Mine Train!
This is one of the images taken by a Disney photographer...so glad to have this!
Our second day was spent at Hollywood Studios. The girls particularly liked the Beauty and the Beast show as well as Fantasmic.
On day 3 we started at Downtown Disney so the big girls could have an Elsa makeover and then we headed back to Magic Kingdom.
This is my favorite image of Clara Jo from the trip. She was absolutely giddy on the carousel :)
Day 4 was our "rest" day. We still had a busy morning eating with Goofy and friends at the Four Seasons (I highly recommend this character breakfast, HIGHLY!!!) then we spent the day exploring Downtown Disney.
Tilley singing "Let It Go" on the back steps of the Four Seasons :)
This is my Uncle Randy and Aunt Peggy who our Disney trip would not have happened without. Thank you all so much for gifting us the hotel stay. We are so very appreciative!
Our final day was spent at Animal Kingdom!
After a through the night drive back to NC we all had a bit of a Disney hangover and spent much of our first day back in Wilmington like this :)
You still with me?!?! I hope you enjoyed re-living some of our Disney memories with me.
Now, don't forget to head on over to Kami's blog to see what her take on this month's theme, Real Necessity, is. I hope you all enjoy Kami's work as much as I do....it is stunning!
Kami Friday Photography, New Hampshire Beach Lifestyle Family Photographer
http://www.kamifridayphotography.com/?p=4329