stronger with more confidence

In high school, I was less self-conscious about taking photographs of everything. As I got older, my anxiety worsened, as did my paranoia that everyone was judging and laughing at me. It also didn't help when I was just out of high school, a supposed friend of mine asked with a scoff,"Are you taking a picture of your coffee?" That hit me hard. It's taken me a while to silence that inner taunting voice to do what I love the most and that is literally to take photos of EVERYTHING. I loved portraiture. It was my focus in photography and I loved pulling personality out of my subjects. A lot of people are uncomfortable in front of cameras, but I usually made it work.

I've been shooting weddings and friends for a few years so I had made strides in my confidence in instructing people what to do, where to stand, and to stop making that face. This year, I had to idea to design our store's Christmas card that we send to other stores. I'm doing individual shots of my co-workers, editing, resizing, and arranging them into a card format. It's going really well and I got a really wonderful compliment that made me want to share a few of my favorites. "You really captured people's essence." Wow. I didn't realize that's what I had accomplished by allowing them to act naturally. I'd tell them what I was doing and why. Occasionally, they'd grumble at me and I would start shooting. Then they'd object, like,"Hey, wait! Whoa. I've gotta check my hair." I told them to make a face, do a silly pose if they felt like it. I didn't want everyone to have the same backdrop and cheesy smile. I left it up to them and it worked to my advantage. Here are a few of my favorites:

Funny little thing: since I'm shorter than a lot of my co-workers (I'm only 5'4"), I either forced them to sit, or pose in a slouched/hunched manner so that it wouldn't be from an unflattering angle. I'd say,"Alright, I'm not very tall so I'm going to need you to lean on this or slouch a bit for me." You've gotta do what you gotta do!