It happens every. single. January.

There are not shoots to photograph or weddings left to edit, and by the middle of January I would have already done all of the maintenance and changes on my website and blog, and looked through any inspiration I can find to refresh for the Spring. Then there is nothing but crickets and cold weather for about another month before I start getting calls for spring family sessions and weddings.

I love to be busy with projects and work, and then when I’m slammed with work, I long for a break. My ambivelance is quite a problem with my personality, I have yet to find that perfect balance.  I can tell you though, that in January I’m bored out of my mind. I don’t want to do things like sweep cobwebs out of the basement, but I long for meaningful projects that will make me feel like I’m “gaining ground” somehow. Today was one of those days when I realized how I photograph my own memories as mere casual snapshots and don’t put as much effort into them as I would a client’s memories. Today I tried to capture more than my normal snapshot of my kids.

I was inspired to shoot some real life images of my kids after they woke up from their naps with a lens that I don’t normally use. I chose the 50mm 1.2 lens, it’s been a tad bit soft for a while now, but I wanted to really test it and try shooting at lower apertures and see what happened. I was pleasantly surprised with it’s performance. My aperture ranged from 1.4-2.0 in these images.

Silas was very interested in the camera and probably gave me the best “faces” I’ve seen in a while. Solomon was not so sure, eventually he broke down into tears for some unapparent reason. I think he was scared of the camera, or maybe it was just to close to waking up from his nap.