Behind the Moment: 365 with Allison

As part of Catch the Moment 365 we are featuring participants of the project monthly. Allison of Home and Never Alone has been participating in the project since it started at the beginning of the year. I’m so happy to share her photography story with you today.  Follow her on facebook, twitter, and instagram to learn more about her journey. 

When and how did you discover and fall in love with photography?  I've always liked taking pictures - I have albums of photos I took as a kid on family vacations and school trips. Like many people, I caught the photography bug in earnest after my children were born. As they've grown from tiny newborns to busy kids, the challenge to capture them in pictures has grown - and thanks to Catch the Moment 365, so have my photography skills.

What's in your camera bag? What's your favorite piece of equipment? Go to editing software/actions/presets etc? Photography is my hobby, and my equipment reflects that - we upgraded from a pocket sized point and shoot camera after our son was born and now I use a Nikon Coolpix L310. It's a definite upgrade from our last camera but less of an investment than many other cameras out there! I also take a lot of pictures on the go on my iPod, and I love the PicTapGo app for making those quickie pictures look their best.

What has been the most influential technique or tip you learned to help you improve your own photography? The best tip I've gotten came from our Catch the Moment 365 group - the right camera is the one you have at hand. Would I love to capture every special moment on my "good" camera? Sure. But this project has really taught me to appreciate the small everyday moments that I might not have otherwise photographed, and sometimes that means letting go of the perfect shot and taking what I can get with what's at hand.

If you could take a photo walk anywhere in the world where would you go and who would you bring with you? I had the chance to do this over the summer! Our family took a long awaited vacation to Charleston, SC, a place my husband and I visited on our honeymoon. We'd talked about going back with our kids for years, and the trip kept getting postponed. I've had a picture in my head of the kids on the steps of the City Market, and in June I finally got the chance to make that picture real. Taking part in Catch the Moment 365 definitely honed my skills and helped make the pictures I took even better than the ones I'd been imagining!

Who/What are your favorite photography subjects? My kids. They grow and change so much from week to week, and I love catching their funny little expressions and gestures before they outgrow them and move on to the next thing.

Is there anything you hope to accomplish in regards to photography in the next year? I'm looking forward to completing a year in photos with Catch the Moment 365, and I hope to continue to improve my photography skills.

Here's what Allison had to say about how doing a 365 project has improved her photography:

I've always loved taking pictures. As a little girl, I loved to get a disposable camera and fill it up with family vacation memories, clicking the shutter and winding the film along as I went. As I got older, I got my very own camera - how fancy it felt to load the 35mm film in myself! In college, I took endless pictures of fun times with friends. What a disappointment it was to get my pictures back and realize this one was a little too dark, and that one didn't quite fit the whole group in the frame!

When my husband and I got married, we got our first digital camera, and it was a revelation. No more waiting until the pictures came back to see if I'd captured the image I was hoping for! We filled up photo albums with vacation photos, and when our daughter was born in 2009 we took hundreds of pictures. Her little brother arrived in 2012, and I think we're on volume nine of kid photo albums now.

I've always thought of myself as a decent photographer...but I've never studied photography or pushed myself to test my skills until I heard about the Catch the Moment 365 project from my friend Mindi. I thought it would be a fun way to catch more of our everyday life on camera. I completely underestimated how the project would change my photography skills!

Taking a picture a day has pushed me to get the camera out on days I wouldn't normally consider photo-worthy. After eight months, I'm seeing more beauty in Legos spilled across the carpet and paints splashed on the dining room table than in posed portraits, which made up so much of my "before" photos. My pictures are more clear and my sense of perspective has improved dramatically - I don't hesitate to drop to the ground to catch my kids on their level now. The only downside to the project is wishing I could go back and retake their baby pictures - how sad it was to realize how many are just slightly out of focus!

I've loved challenging myself to rethink what makes a good picture and watching my skills change over the last eight months - and I can't wait to see where I'll be by the end of the year. 

Be sure to check out Allison's 365 Project every week on her blog Home and Never Alone.