Yearly Archives: 2014

KatlynRose Photography [Dear Photographer]

01-02-14

I am excited for you to meet my friend, Katlyn. She’s a busy young mom with a passion for photography. I have been inspired and amazed watching her start out snapping pictures of her  children to beautifully documenting her family’s daily life with her current talent. I am especially a fan of her black and white candid moments from ordinary days at home.  If there’s one word that I’d use to describe this young woman, it would be loving.  She lives out a passionate love for her Lord, her children and her husband –with humility. What a treasure!  I haven’t yet met her in person, but I’m hopeful for the day I am able to do just that.

  It’s a common quest among women who are building a photography business: balancing life with learning. Let’s peek in on her life for a glimpse of how a busy mom and wife can grow her knowledge of photography and manage to handle the household day to day.

 

Did I tell you she has 4 children 4 years old and under? They’re ADORABLE! Now, here’s Katlyn (and family)!

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Hi, I am a 23 year old. A mom of 4 ( all under the age of 5) and a photographer. Even though I am still learning everyday, I am here to share what I’vee learned so far- as a mom and a photographer. Let me  start off by saying it is far from easy juggling it all, but it is possible.

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My number one piece of advice for other moms of young children at home  is to make and follow a schedule. I am a little crazy about schedules but it makes it all work. I schedule my kids day and then also mine. During the day I have a cleaning day, two days a week I  set aside time  to edit client photos, one day to edit personal photos, and a day to just spend time with my kids. On weekends I am more laid back,  and except for the sacred sleep times which I really try to keep consistent, we kinda go with the flow.  One promise for myself is to be lenient with my set a schedule. Structure is important but not more important than life and the people in my world.  If I am excited to edit a client’s photo, or if I decide to move my unplugged day up,  I just swap the days. I love the flexibility to rearrange my schedule all the while knowing I’ll be sure to fit in all the days. I think its important for me to have set days because it keeps me accountable. In the past I have gotten busy with photography and had to  spend more time editing. Before long, I found myself  eliminating my unplugged day or other personal opportunities.  I love photography,  but I  love my family more.  I keep my family as my true priority, and that entails spending time with them and keeping up with editing my personal photos. I don’t want to look back in 10 years and see that I took a ton of photos of clients but none of my family.

Day in and day out, the kids have set times they do crafts, eat, go outside, and sleep. Bananas, anyone?

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My kids are the reason I started photography in the first place, and that’s  something I have to remind myself of-sometimes more than others. There are times I get side tracked and don’t pick up the camera for a few days, but even when I’m tired or don’t feel like it, I get out that camera once again. I enjoy lifestyle photography and capturing my real life moments. When the kids are older I am going to want photos that mean something and have a memory attached to them-not just a photo of them smiling looking at the camera. Although, like any professional photographer, I get excited and love having photos that look great and are technically correct, when it comes to getting the kids’ lives documented, I’m ok with a snapshot vs no shot. I leave my camera out on a shelf so that when I see ‘a moment’ I can quickly get to it (kids are fast) because there are no re-dos in real life!

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Running my days according to schedule not only make them happy during the day, but also secures their routine at night. The most important thing to me is their bedtime. (A day with twin toddlers and two little preschool princesses makes the best of moms ready for a refresher! ) They go to bed at 7PM,  and that gives me time to get some things finished  I didn’t get to during the day,and also gives me time to spend with my husband.

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 That it something really important to me. Even as young as my children are now, I realize that someday they will be gone out of the house and it will be just me and my husband. When they leave, I want to be left with a good relationship  and great bond with him. I think many ignore their marriage in favor of parenting  for 18 or so years,  then it’s hard when they realize  it’s just the two of them left and they’re strangers to one another. I don’t want that to be us, so we work on building “us” with time alone to talk, dream, laugh and relax with one another  each evening.   Remember, it’s not easy, but it is doable–and worth it all!

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I hope you were encouraged with this invitation into  Katlyn’s home for a brief visit. I know I am every time I see or read something from her.

I’m sure she’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment for her here and look her up on facebook at Katlyn Rose Images.

 

Filed in:Blog | Dear Photographer

New 2014 [My Story]

01-01-14

My heart overflows, my mind races, my fingers can’t keep up. There is so much I want to say at this moment, but I have to first deal with the big speed bump that keeps everything else unsteady… New Year’s Eve.

If you’re on any social media right now, I don’t need to tell you it’s flooded with ‘out with the old, in with the new’ and the like. I read of past regrets and future hope. Of life anew and life that’s gone.  But this one facebook status scrolled through with the masses and really caused me pause: “New Year to me means FREEDOM.”

Out with the old.  In with the new. Out with the bondage. In with the freedom.  Really? Does that even sound right, because that IS what the conglomeration of the rolling statuses are saying.   Goodness. What a trap we bind ourselves in with these thoughts-with these beliefs.

Freedom with “New” is easy to understand.  A fresh start- I get that.  But freedom because the clock ticks midnight and the calendar changes? With that would also come some crux of crossover as new melds with old, the pages of the calendar flip to next, and, once again, freedom is overcome with bondage.  An endless  and futile cycle.

The other outlooks aren’t too promising either-peek at them with me: rich, thin, healthy, good, bad, control, happy…these things we wish for next year are the same we found ourselves uttering as the last ball dropped in NYC. Again we say, out with the old, in with the new. Freedom.  Who wants to live with finding freedom from the past on each December 31st knowing that hope turns to despair as the year unfolds leaving us in the same spot 365 days later?  Is there a way to end this turnabout?

We’re tarnished in our thinking. New. Old. Beginning. Freedom. We can’t think like God does.

God has a plan. A plan to pardon all that weighs us down and a plan to give us life abundantly and endlessly.

Isiaha 55:8 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways.

He can make old new and offer us freedom that truly frees us…forever.

The beginning was a long, long time ago.

My spunky and beloved mother in law’s birthday is today. She was born in 1915: 98 years ago.  It is also her 4th birthday celebration in heaven after her home-going just a few short years ago. (Where has that time gone?)  You sure learn a lot by living with someone who has that much life experience. Such a wealth of wisdom.  Yet,even for her, the  beginning wasn’t just shy of 100 years prior.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  Genesis 1:1

…and the stroke of midnight on any given night, nor the first of January…. that’s not the beginning.  It’s the start of our calendar year, but it’s not the beginning.  It’s the new year in and the old year out, but that’s only good for the moment, for the one second in time that it’s true. If we live to be 100, we’ve got 100 seconds of old becomes new. That’s not much to bank on, but again, our minds are clouded with ‘ordinary.’  I’m thankful that God’s ways are far from ordinary. What a mess we’d be in without him. An entire life  and only seconds of freedom as the clock ticks out with the old and in with the new, out with the old and in with the new, out with the old and in with the new for each New Year’s Eve we’re given in this life.  Not much hope there.

There IS hope. There IS a way to for old to be gone and new to outlast the calendar.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

Borrowed from Matthew’s commentary, I love what he says about the one who finds Christ: “Though the same as a man, he is changed in his character and conduct. These words must and do mean more than an outward reformation. The man who formerly saw no beauty in the Savior that he should desire him, now loves him above all things.”

That’s me. That’s what the Lord has done in my life. New. Truly, out with the old and in with the new. No calendar, no crystal  ball dropping down on New Year’s Eve, but a truly transformed me by the Lord’s grace and through Christ.  Now, that’s freedom!

“I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. …But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:19

And at the end of the year sitting in my living room watching NYC come to life with celebratory hope for the year anew, I can say-even in the face of the hardest of years, I can humbly and thankfully proclaim the truth:

“Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done, And Your thoughts toward us; There is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count.”  Psalm 40:5

This new year, 2014, I pray that you too know the truth of real hope, know the relief of really being able to say out with the old and in with the new, and know the personal experience of true freedom  as found only in Christ.

Happy New Year!

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