its okay to use your cell.

recently, i took my camera with my to the grocery store. my youngest was about to turn one and i wanted to take some "day in the life" photos with her.

 

i do love it. truly. but it made me remember this iphone pic of my kids at the same store a few weeks. ago.

 

is the first one technically better? sure. does it change the fact that i love the 2nd one? no. i still got to capture that moment. preserve it forever. ya know, the one where they were all being nice and behaving themselves at the store ;)

since being in the hospital with reese, i have a new outlook on bringing out the "big" camera v. taking cell shots. sometimes, i just dont care. and i dont think you should either.

this is my absolute favorite shot of reese. before surgery, she was so sick. could barely move bc of hydrocephalus and her blood pressure being so low. all of her hair across her forehead like it normally was. so sweet and peaceful. it means nothing less to me bc it wasnt taken with a DSLR. could i have gotten out my stuff, crawled up on the bed, adjusted my focus, and shot away? sure. but i wanted to preserve the moment in REAL time. by watching her, holding her... and i still have an image to last me forever.

i took this photo the day before surgery as well. could i get my camera? no. bc i was crying. my heart was broken. and so was my husband's. but that doesn't mean that i don't look at it and cry almost every.single.time. i love this photo. how raw it is. how real. whether it was taken with my cell, out of focus, quickly done - or not.

i dont want to be eating dinner and unpack my camera, choose a lens, move myself amongst my family to get the shot. i want to enjoy dinner and snap moments that i may have missed by adjusting settings.



when reese would come out of surgery, i wanted to document her. her scars. her reactions. but i am not the mamarazzi. there is a fine line. and when you look at these 2 photos, the DSLR shot didnt change the way life was. it doesnt change how i feel when i look at them. it doesnt change the memory.

 

 in december, my oldest daughter was a window dancer in downtown mckinney. oh man i couldn't wait to see her pretty face. i didnt even bring my camera. i watched them do their first dance in partners. then she asked her dance teacher if she could do one alone - and make it up as she went. she was gorgeous.

and i didnt miss a second taking this photo. i didnt think about glass reflection. i didnt think about anything except for her cute face, nice form, and sweet confidence.

sometimes the before bath shots must be cell pics since i only have 2 seconds to catch that sketti filled face before it goes all over everything that is white.




but i have a few more seconds afterward to get the shot i want of her clean, sweet face :)



should you try to find the light in a photo - even cell? - of course. should you watch your composition and choose something that is more pleasing to the eye? yes...

but i want to get mom-to-mom/dad with you for a second. and not photographer-to-DSLR owner.... its okay to forget with your cell phone. they arent planned shots. they arent something that you are hanging on your wall (although i do. i print from snapstagram and storyboard them into frames lol). they are for your heart. for you to look at and think "that was real". it wasnt posed. it wasnt the second best thing to shoot at that time because you missed the first best because you overestimated your ISO or forgot that you had lowered your SS from the last time you used your camera.

they are it.

and they mean the world to me.