perfectly imperfect

 Note: My giveaway has ended and I will be drawing and announcing the winners soon! :)

When it comes to portrait photography, I can often be found guilty of only sharing those correctly cropped, properly exposed, posed shots. I quickly sift through the ones with low quality or where someone is making a face and move on to those 'perfect' photos.

Which leads me to the thought that it can be so easy to stay on the 'main roads' when showing people your photography, can't it? We believe that it is far better to share the flawless shots that viewers will appreciatively ooh and ahh over, right? Avoid the back roads at all costs. Only share the shots whose quality you deem acceptable to the public eye. Ignore the rest.

But, by doing this, we miss out on...  

 Those shots from that visit to a state park when the man in the nature show placed a baby alligator on your little brother's head.

The cropping is poor, the lighting bad, but the expression...priceless.

(The little brother's expression. Not the reptile's. Thought I should clarify.) ;-)

That photo of your twin cousins where both are looking away because Sister sneaked a glance at Brother to see what he was doing.

The look on your cousin's face in a photo taken at the family beach vacation last year. Sure, the cropping is very poor, but his expression? It's all him. All the way.

 The moment your seven year old brother hoisted your Canon 50D up by himself and captured your youngest brother giving you a sweet kiss on the cheek.

 The photo wherein your twin sister claims she looks tired and pale, but the blue sky of early morning is reflected in her eyes.

The hilarious scrunched up face your little subject made during a photo session in only the way babies can do while still successfully looking cute.


Taking the conscious leap to share the 'back roads' of your photography with viewers can be daunting...but it will usually be a journey filled with raw human emotion. Isn’t that what portrait photography is all about?

And when the subjects from these images are grown-up or older and the events behind the photos themselves are but a memory, sure we'll look at the posed portraits and smile. But what will really grab our attention are the ones where that person's true personality seems to leap out from the photograph. These are the photos we'll remember best. These are the photos we'll laugh and talk about in years to come.

Because they're real.

They're genuine.

 They're-

Perfectly imperfect. :-)

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever... it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.” ~ Aaron Siskind