Share Six | Summer Days

This month’s theme is Summer Days. As a homeschooling mom, I very much look forward to summer. I LOVE teaching my kids, and we can have a lot of fun learning together, BUT it’s a lot of work and I look forward to a break.

As artists, we photographers often put so much effort into taking perfectly curated images,  So as a photographer, of course I love to TRY to take awesome photos of my kids….pictures that could hopefully win photography contests.  As the years have passed though, I’m finding that I want to be in the moment and not worry about lugging around my expensive camera. So the fancy pictures are few and far between. Quite honestly though, the best camera is the one you have with you.  Almost everyone has a cell phone with a decent camera on it.  So I’m finding that I tend to take most of my pictures with my cell phone.  It’s kind of a bummer as a cell phone camera limits me, but I also don’t miss lugging my nice camera around and worrying about keeping it safe. Honestly, what’s most important is documenting the moments. They don’t have to be documented perfectly, or composed so fantastically that they could win a photography contest. They just need to capture the moment.

So for this month’s theme I’m doing all cell phone images. They may not be the most artistic or perfectly composed images, but those moments got documented quickly and I was able to return to being present in the moment with my kids.

For my first image, it’s from a special moment. My daughter had the honor of being accepted to a weeklong vocal intensive camp at Belmont University in Nashville, TN. We decided to take some extra time and go down a week early to visit family in Kentucky. My sweet aunts and uncles came and watched my daughter at her final concert. That was so sweet of them and meant the world to me. So this photo documented that special day.

On our way home from that trip, we stopped in St. Louis to visit my brother and sister-in-law. We also stopped at the Arch. I took a few extra seconds to try to creatively compose a cool shot of the Arch. Would my nice camera have been better? Yep, but once again, I enjoyed not lugging it around.

This third picture is from while my daughter was at another camp and we took my son camping. It was quite an evening with two dogs in tow, but we had fun.

This next one is from when my niece and nephews were in town and we took the kids to visit some local caves. We all got pretty muddy, but we had a blast.

We also took all of the kids kayaking. My daughter prefers her stand up paddle board though and gave the kids rides around the lake on it.

One of my favorite things to do during the summer is kayak. My good friend and I love to go out kayaking and just relax and chat. Motherhood can be exhausting, so we really enjoy commiserating and just enjoying nature out on the water.

Thanks so much for stopping by!! I hope you enjoyed my images, and I hope you remember that the best camera is the one you have with you, as well as it’s more important to just document the moment rather than figure out a way to make the image magazine worthy. I think we all enjoy the candid partially out-of-focus pictures our parents have their albums just as much (if not more) as the professional ones they had taken of us. So keep that in mind. Just document each moment quickly and then live in the moment with those you love.

Head on over to Michelle’s blog and see her lovely take on this month’s theme. Be sure to continue through the circle to see all of our contributors’ interpretations!