We are so honored to have Crystal Raynard Photography as our guest judge this week! Please take a moment to learn more about her and view some of her AMAZING work below!
Tell us a little about yourself (family, hobbies, etc.)
I am a Mom of 2 beautiful daughters aged 7&8, and one little man age 1, We are your typical busy family, My girls play baseball and take Tap Dancing, it is never a dull moment. Married my High School sweetheart 9 years ago,and love that he always understands that sometimes I just need to capture that shot. I run a in home daycare in our small town of southwestern Ontario, so most of my days are spent with some of the best company around, Children. I also run a Playgroup every week, and enjoy heading to teach the kids on Sunday's in Sunday school at our Church. I love working with children as much I love to work with my camera and they seem to work hand in hand together quiet nicely. For hobbies other than photography I enjoy reading, and enjoy it so much I had to trade in books for a electronic reader, I was running out of shelf space. I also enjoy crafting. I just started a little adventure of painting and selling canvas', and hope to soon add more of my sewing pieces to the mix as well. I also enjoy the outdoors, we as a family love to go hiking, fishing, camping and spending a day out on the water!
What got you started in taking lifestyle images (or photography in general)?
I believe the thing that got me into lifestyle photography and really photography in general, was wanting to capture my point of view to show others how I see it through the view finder. I wanted to capture every little detail of my families lives to have something for them to look back on, I don't have many photos of my brothers and I growing up, and once I started got hooked right away. The 365 photo project also got me into taking more of the lifestyle images as well, I never realized how much I was missing in our lives and how much more I would learn in my photography journey by making the decision to break away from the posing, and the smiling looking at the camera.
Any photographers that you look up to?
I have so many photographers that I look up, A few years back I found Nick Kelsh's How to Photograph your Baby/Lifestyle page. I looked up to his work and learned so much from his teachings, but possibly the best part of that site was in meeting other photographers, a small group of us all became friends a few years ago and I look up to them every single day. They have pushed and taught me the most when I needed it the most, they have helped make me into me the photographer I am today.
What is in your camera bag?
My camera bag is probably more on the bigger side then it needs to be, I like to be prepared and tend to carry for that, maybe that is the mother side of me. First off my have Pentax K100D, with my SCM Pentax-FA 28-80mm lens, it never leaves my camera. I have extra batteries, extra memory card, lens filter, tripod and Light Scoop. In case of Emergency I have wipes,a comb, band aids and chocolates for when the little ones need some encouragement!
If you could shoot anybody in the world, anywhere, who and where?
Really I would just simply would like to go back a few years and capture more of my older girls growing up. I was more into sit still, smile nice, put on this nice pretty dress type of a photography, I spend so much money taking them when they were babies to a studio and come out with lovely photos but nothing like the photos I am taking now a days chasing around our 1 year old. My girls will often comment on how they wish they could have a more photos of them as babies.
Thank you so much to Crystal Raynard Photography for sharing this with us, and for being guest judge!
Please feel free to view her Facebook page to see more amazing images!!!
If you would like to be a guest judge, please send an email to crazybeautifulphotos@yahoo.com
