Visual Storytelling

 

Being both cloyingly sentimental and a perfectionist is tiring. On the one hand I feel the tug between capturing life, however messy, however out of focus, and on the other capturing the ideal, aesthetic perfection I have in my mind. For a while now I’ve been chasing the latter, even though it always seems to elude me. Yet I’ve started to neglect what inspired me to pick up a camera in the first place: finding the beauty in everyday, life. And (most importantly) documenting my children as they are. As they play, as they fight, as they discover, without me interfering with my directives. I’ve spent so long chasing the ideal that I now find it hard to just sit back and observe.

 

This is what prompted me to take the online Visual Storytelling class at Life: Captured Inc (that, and the need to push myself to test out manual mode on my camera). I don’t want to give up chasing that ideal image but I also want to be able to just relax, sit back and surrender control once in a while. Here are a few images I took over the the period of the five week course.  I still find it difficult to relinquish control but I’m learning to let go. Just a bit.