Cleveland Children’s Photographer ~ Project 52 ~ 3/52 {black & white}

Happy Friday, everyone! It’s week 3 of Project 52, and this week our theme was “black & white.”

My clients often ask me why I do what I do. I always try to answer them with words, but here’s some visual evidence. This is what it’s all about. I pursued photography as a hobby because I wanted to have images like this of my family to keep forever. I have very few photos of myself as a child, and most of them are polaroids or very low quality prints that will probably be faded and gone before I have grandchildren. My husband, on the other hand, had professional photographers for parents, and his baby books are filled with beautiful images of his childhood. I wanted to make sure I had that for my kids, too.

Once I began studying photography and developing my skills, I started taking photos for other people because I felt that everyone should have images like these, and I wanted to provide the opportunity to as many families as possible.

I love black and white photos. There is something about a black and white image that just seems to freeze that moment in time. In the photo above, my kids are giving my mom (their “Mimi”) kisses after she blew out the candles on her birthday cake. In color, this image has a neon-pink cake in the foreground, my son is wearing a blue striped shirt, my daughter a pink shirt, and there is less-than-lovely light in the background from fluorescent lighting. By converting the image to black and white, I removed the distractions, so the focus goes directly to my mom’s face in the middle, and the delight that she always finds in her grandchildren.

Please continue on to photographer Brandie Pahl’s Blog to see her entry for this week’s Project 52 theme! Follow the links through the circle until you get all the way back here, and enjoy the trip!