Another wonderful week and that means another stunning guest judge! This week we had the honor of having Little Miss Lovely Photography as our guest judge!! Read more about her below and check out just a small portion of her wonderful work!
Tell us a little about yourself (family, hobbies, etc.)
I am a happily married wife to my wonderful husband, Dana, and together we are parents to our sweet 3 year old daughter, Nadia Noelle. We live in a very rural town in Northwest Ohio surrounded by miles of cornfields… and we love it! When my camera is not occupying my hands, I can be found reading a book, creating anything and everything in my craft room, baking (I LOVE to bake!) and exercising. Sometimes. ;)
What got you started in taking lifestyle images (or photography in general)?
I loved photography ever since I was very young and only had an old 35mm film camera and a drugstore to develop the film. But I really pursued it more seriously after college when I could afford to buy myself my first DSLR. It took a while to find my niche, but lifestyle images are my driving force for sure. For me, photographing people is not about capturing their very best smile. It's about documenting a time in someone's life, whether good or bad. It's capturing personalities and telling their story. I named my business Little Miss Lovely after my daughter, Nadia, because it was her that changed my perspective and the way I approached photographing people. I learned to embrace the mess and the craziness we call home and not always be in control. It's nice to look through my own photo albums and remember those stories, day by day, exactly how they were. No forced smiles. Just real every day life.
Any photographers that you look up to?
There are SO many photographers that I adore and admire so much!! I'd have to say that Kate T. Parker and DeAnna McCasland are two of my favorites! When you look through their images, you feel like you're right there in the middle of the scene with everyone, hearing the laughter and smelling the fresh air. They're phenomenal artists.
What is in your camera bag?
I have a great deal in my camera bag at the moment (and trying to purge the lenses I haven't touched in a while!), but I generally shoot with my Canon 5D Mark ii with a Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 attached. I switch between that and my nifty fifty often, but my absolute favorite lens in my bag is my Helios 44m f/2 film lens. It's so gorgeous!! Let's see, I also have a Canon 7d, a Canon EOS 3 film camera, my Canon 28mm f/1.8, and Lensbaby Spark. But I've been known to leave the SLRs behind for a day and just pull out my Fuji Instax cameras for fun! Nothing like taking it back to some good old fashioned Polaroids, right?
If you could capture anybody in the
world, anywhere, who and where?
If I could time travel and take it back to the 50s, I would have loved to capture my parents as children. Any time I see photos of them as kids or young adults, there's part of me that just wants to see more!! My parents have a TON of photos from when my sister's and I were young kids (albums, prints, and a giant box of slide film, too!!), but out of all of them, I always loved those few pictures of them as little ones, too. I think it would have been awesome to do a "day in the life of" type of photo shoot with their families. It would have been cool to see my grandparents playing the role of young parents, too! Ah, if only!
