Jun 24 2009

Welcome, Dreamers!

Posted in Me

I’ve you’ve clicked through from Dare to Dream, welcome to my blog!  I was thrilled to have the opportunity to write a guest post for Whitney.  Whitney is a dear friend and an invaluable sounding board.  She’s encouraged me to tell my story in a cabaret show I recently put together (and then played the piano for some performances – including a performance coming up in Utah) and has constantly urged me to follow any dreams or ideas I have. It was because of Whitney’s encouragement that I decided to take the plunge and start my own photography business.  The most amazing thing about Whitney is that everyone who knows her feels she is their personal cheerleader.  She gets so excited about you and your gifts and your ideas and is able to help you discover things about yourself that you didn’t know were there.  She’s an inspiration to me.

I realized as I was writing my Dare to Dream post that I don’t have very many pictures of my mom and I.  I have a lot of pictures of her around my home – mom with one of my siblings, mom with Katie Couric when we visited the Today Show.  I have the photos from our last photo session together. (That was a blessing – we had professional portraits taken a week before she died.  My brother was leaving on his mission and we didn’t have recent pictures.  We’re so grateful for those pictures now.) But, I don’t have any pictures of the two of us in my home and frankly, I couldn’t think of the most recent picture I have of just the two of us.  I went looking through my scrapbooks and found it.

Photobucket

My mom and I on the Atlantic City Boardwalk - 1997

I really am sad I have so few pictures of the two of us.  I’m envious of the pictures my brother and sister have with her.  I know the lack of pictures isn’t a reflection of how we felt about each other – she just hated being in pictures.  So much so, she was known to cut herself out of pictures if she didn’t like the way she looked.  And haven’t we all been tempted to do that?

I love being a photographer. I love creating photos that reflect the relationships my clients have with each other.  I love documenting my own family as they grow.  But if I’m being honest, I hide behind the camera when it comes to taking pictures of my family.  I take the pictures because I don’t want to be in the pictures.  I don’t want to be reminded that I haven’t been exercising.  I don’t want to see the proof that I ate at too many drive-thrus when I was pregnant and still haven’t lost all the weight yet.  But I want to leave behind a different photographic legacy to my son than was left to me. So, my challenge to you to embrace the photographic hassle and to get out from behind the camera is also my challenge to me.  So, I’m buying this tripod to start taking self-portraits and more pictures of me playing with my son.  And I’m making plans to have professional pictures taken later this summer.

I can’t just drop a challenge on you without giving a solution.  So, here’s the solution – leave a comment below.  I would love to hear about your favorite picture of yourself and why you love it.  If you leave a comment by next Wednesday, July 1, you will be eligible to win a Basic Family Collection photo shoot with me.  ($200 value) This photo shoot must be done before December 31, 2009.  I’m in the Boston area, but if you are in Washington D.C. or Utah, I’ll be traveling to those locations for photo shoots later this year, so you can enter too. (Details on next month’s Utah photo shoots will be on this blog tomorrow – check back!)

Happy picture taking!  Feel free to visit again!  I post recent photo sessions, pictures of my family, Photoshop tips and shots from personal photography projects on this blog.  I also have a family blog that I’ve kept for a couple years now.  If you like American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance, you might want to check out my episode recaps (new SYTYCD performance recap after tonight’s show!) on that blog.  Have a fabulous day!


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Carl HackingJune 24, 2009 - 10:18 am

While I have taken many self portraits (assignments for school), my favorite ones are when I am flying (helicopters). The favorite of those is a cropped version my wife has on the wall when I had a short beard and sunglasses. I like these photos the bess because I cannot concentrate too much on the picture and it is more natural. I also enjoy seeing the landscape behind me from the air.

I use a small point and shoot (Casio) as it is really hard to hold my slr while flying, and usually take 4 or 5 till I get one that I like. I do sometimes use my cameraphone so I can send pics to my wife and kids to show where I am. http://tinyurl.com/mann6z This link is one of my wife and I taken with a cameraphone while we were messing around in the Will Rogers Museum in Oklahoma. I just like standing with a friend and taking a picture.

Good luck with your self portraits.

yvonneJune 24, 2009 - 1:03 pm

Great post, macy.

Loved your comments on your friend, whitney’s blog. I force myself to get out from behind the camera and am very glad when I do, too.

rebeccaJune 24, 2009 - 1:48 pm

Now that we are into digital photography it’s gotten so much easier to take more photographs, so it should be EASY for us moms to get in the photos, right? :) I still have to remind myself too to get in some photos with each of my kids. I’m always glad I did, esp. once I get past the reality of how I really looked that day. LOL.
This photo of your mom is sweet and little did you know at the time how valuable it would be to you one day. You look so happy. I love it.

ShelleyJune 24, 2009 - 2:10 pm

Macy, I loved this post. I don’t think I have seen a picture of you and your mom before. I know since I have been divorced, I have tried very hard to take my favorite kind of pictures of myself…and those are with my two sweet little boys. So now, as we look back through our photo albums, there are lots of pictures of US. I know I will treasure those memories forever. And it would be great to win a photo shoot from you! (I may need some engagement pictures by then)! ;)

Amy Jo SchenewarkJune 24, 2009 - 2:29 pm

Great post! I am thankful for the reminder to capture those whom we love before they’re gone. I realize that more and more about my parents (Hutchins) as I watch them get older. But I really love photos with my boys and me.

JennyJune 24, 2009 - 6:27 pm

My favorite picture is one that ep took last fall; my husband is SO good about adoring me with his words, and in this picture I can see him adoring me with his eyes. It’s precious to me.

JennyJune 24, 2009 - 6:28 pm

PS. You’re so talented! Your blog is GREAT.

EmilyJune 24, 2009 - 7:28 pm

My favorite pictures of myself are ones that you took. One with Miles and the other with Isaac, I feel like I look happy, and that I look like I really love taking care of my boys. I don’t notice as much what my features look like, but the emotion on my face. So, thanks!!

LizzieJune 25, 2009 - 1:22 pm

Some of my favorite pictures of myself are of me with a brand new baby in the hospital. I may be pale and chubby, but how can you not love cradling a brand new little babe and capturing that special moment.

LLJuly 1, 2009 - 7:27 pm

Macy. SIGN ME UP!
I think i’ve commented already, perhaps on the Dare to Dream post?!
Either way, I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again…I love the point you bring up about not wanting to be IN the pictures because we aren’t “christmas card worthy” or too many drive thru’s. SO TRUE!
Yet, I LOVE love love to find old photos of myself, and rarely look at them with the critical eye I have at the moment the photo is taken.
Pictures are a treasure, and YOU are incredibly talented! Looking forward to the end of August…I already broke the news to my family. And they are good with it.

MarkJuly 1, 2009 - 7:27 pm

I have two favorite pictures. One is of me when I was four or five, big blonde curls and a bandage around the finger I tried to slice off with a lawnmower. Innocence and youth.

The second is of my wife and me at our wedding reception. We’re looking to the left and up, with the biggest looks of anticipation. Probably looking at someone coming through the line, but if we were anticipating the joys of marriage we were dead on, because it’s been a wild and crazy ride this past 36 years.

Kira K.July 1, 2009 - 7:32 pm

I am so glad that we are able to have cameras/pictures to help remind us of certain people and times in our lives. I think that it is almost like keeping a journal. You see things in yourself or the people around you that maybe you didn’t see at the time. Well anyways- The picture that I like most of myself would have to be when it was my first semester and my roommate and I went out the some gardens and I thought it would be funny to make some green fuzzy leaves as my ears, and put on a little smirk. I just like that is shows that I can be light-hearted, it just reminds me to not take myself to seriously. :) ps. I just really like your blog, it’s really fun/cute

Jen Pope Haywood-DaddieJuly 1, 2009 - 7:40 pm

I just have to squeeze in here how much I love and admire my Macy!!!!! One of my dreams is to finally get behind the camera and capture the beauty that I’ve been attempting to create my whole life. Right now I feel “my” life is on the backburner as I’ve spent two consecutive years being pregnant. Reading your blog really struck a cord since my son is almost one and we have only one picture of me holding him (which, by the way, I look half crazed on drugs). I do, however, have two pictures of me that I love. The first was a picture that was taken by the illustrious Mirium Latour at a time when I felt that the world was at my feet…I really feel like it captured all of me, body and soul! You can see my personality, my determination…the first time I felt like “yes, that is who I am”. I have referenced that photo many times these past few years with the brain tumor, preemie baby and the many times life has brought me so far down and made me question who I am. I look at that picture and can clearly see maybe what the world and the mirror don’t reflect… that I am amazing and that somewhere I stiil “got it”. The other picture of me (well, I participated) is actually what my husband and I sent out with our wedding invitations. It is simply a picture of our hands. Mighn not sound like much but the contrast of his dark beautiful skin against my pale pale skin just simply holdning hands in almost a surreal moment is what I think the angels in heaven cheer for…a symbol of how far we have come as a people to love one another despite color or religion or anything else that has been a stumbling block for all of history. Both of these pictures are in my profile pictures on facebook if you’d like to seek a peek. Thanks for letting me read your article and be inspired by you all over again. Congratulations on the life you have buil for yourself and I hope you enjoy every minute of it!!!!

Love love, Jen

Karen Knight LowellJuly 1, 2009 - 8:55 pm

Macy,
I have always hated having my picture taken too. It is sad because we have very few family pictures or pictures of me with any of my kids when they were growing up. I do have a picture of myself with my sweet niece (Dan’s daughter)Lacy that I love. I don’t know why, it’s just a sweet shot of the two of us. I would love to win the photo shoot! I would have to make Holly come up for it. Anyway, you are an amazing woman. I can only imagine how proud your mom is!
Karen

Ann Dee EllisJuly 1, 2009 - 9:04 pm

I love my engagement pictures. I think it was one of the first times I really allowed myself to feel pretty. I was so happy and you can see it in the photos. I think you are awesome, Macy.

RebeccaJuly 1, 2009 - 10:45 pm

There is a photo of me and Lily. Lily is maybe 6 weeks old and has this huge binkie in her mouth. We are both cuddled up on my bed fast asleep. Curtis used to bring Lily into me when he’d get up for work. She always slept a little longer in the mornings if she was next to me. Hopefully we’ll continue to have lots of pictures together as she grows!

Photo Shoot – W. Family » Macy Robison Photography [the blog]January 5, 2010 - 1:19 am

[...] have been excited for this shoot. After my guest post on Dare to Dream, I held a contest here on the blog. And Jenny won! Her oldest son has been away at college, but while he was home for [...]

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