Almost all my shots this week were on film, (I'm hoping to have some rolls to send off on Monday.) and since I didn't want to dribble out just a solo 365 shot or two, I thought I'd share some photos from a project we did last month. Hey look! It's me!

My friend Jackie suggested (or was it commanded?) that I do a family portrait. This after I realized it had been almost a year since I'd been in a pic with my people. And since Christmas was coming up, we thought we'd do some for our family. After the initial fiddling with focus, it was quite easy and even fun when we got the dogs involved. Fun for us, maybe.

So I've decided to do a family portrait once a month for the upcoming year. I'd planned to take my pictures last weekend, but some things didn't work out, and now that leaves me with tomorrow. There are pros and cons to this. The pro is that I'm getting my hair cut today. The con is that I'd like to do it outside in front of our shed again and the high is supposed to be 36º. Wish me luck!

I'm the first to admit, I'm not the best photo-walker. Maybe it's the pressure. I don't know. It's hard enough to get me out of the studio, but walking around looking for random things to photograph? Not feeling so great at that.

But it's my year of pushing my photography boundaries (did I tell you that?), so when I had the chance to meet with a new group of women photographers, I had to leap on it. Photo walk: not optional. I had to leap on that too.

We met for coffee first, and getting to know these amazing photographers was, for me, almost the best part. We all bring different perspectives and fresh ideas, and simply sharing stories and information is energizing and inspiring to me. We got along famously from the start, so much so that when we did get to walking there was more talking than photo taking.

I wanted to give myself some limitations and some structure, so I only brought the Lensbaby. I like the challenge of one lens, and I haven't had the LB on my camera in a long time. One woman in our group is a beast with the LB, so it could have been intimidating to try to fiddle with that little lens, but mostly I just tried to chill and have some fun. That's what it's all about, right?

Looking back, it's kind of amazing how much further we are along in our spring these days (I'm lame, aren't I? It's taken me forever to post. And edit. And download.) But you know what? This was a good day. I do love taking photos of architecture, and I especially love testing the waters with a new group of people. I think I got lucky this time. Can't wait till we get out there again.

family photos

early spring photo walk {life}