Hello everyone! I’ve been invited to contribute to a blog circle which draws its motivation and interpretation from songs given to us each month; it’s an honor to be asked and a great opportunity to share something a little bit different. Please make sure to follow all the way to the end to link up with the next photographer in our ‘Songs of Life’ circle! Since this is new thing that I’m doing,  this will be a bit of a departure from my usual pet photography (or fanaticism, depending on how you see it!), but totally in keeping with the direction of where my own personal photography already is, and where my professional work is going.

What I’m talking about is Lifestyle Photography, documenting real life, with all its warts and wrinkles, tantrums and tears. Sometimes smiles and hairballs. Outside of my work with rescue cats, and pet photography, I have practiced my skills within other photography genres that forced me to work with low-light, flash photography, with posing, groups, you name it, I’ve been doing it. But I’m constantly drawn away with my urge to focus on what feels more natural (not always is it easy though): documenting what IS. And THAT is where I am headed, with both my professional pet photography and family photography.

Recently I was lucky enough to be a studio audience member on creativeLIVE‘s course by the talented, amazing, honest and awesome Kirsten Lewis on Family Documentary: Modern Storytelling, and it was seriously profoundly life-changing. What Kirsten stressed throughout is how photography is important because of how it transports us in time, it can be controversial, it evokes an emotion/elicits a human response, and often becomes more powerful over time. With our/your own personal photography, it does most of these, so neglecting our own stories by never photographing them (or by only ever having posed portraits done or getting cheesy smiles for the camera) we never will have those real moments frozen in time in our images.

I’ve been concerning myself too much lately that over this summer, we haven’t been doing much as a family, no big trip…too much comparing to what others are doing. We had a move to make though, the heat slows me down and well, vacationing is expensive. But here we are, at the end of the summer, and these are some of my recently photographed family moments. They radiate light, laughter, smiles, sun, life, childhood. These are moments when my son and my stepdaughter are actually getting along, which usually does seem to happen at the playground. I have kept the imperfections of hair in a mess, the sun flares, the motion blur, and just gone with how these make me FEEL. For me, it’s the joy that radiates from them that has led them into this blog piece. The song that was given was ‘Radiate’ by Jack Johnson, and while I originally just saw moments in my head all week of how it made me immediately think solely of my boy, these are the images that spoke to me.

**Please click on the photos to view them bigger  and to scroll through! The next link in the blog circle can be found below so be sure to follow the circle around!

The Last Pringle. Copyright KA.Moore Photography.

Until I post again  (when I will just HAVE to tell you about my upcoming photography conference trip), remember to come say hi on Facebook.

Next up in this fabulous circle of amazing photographers is Jennifer of Jennifer Snavely Photography and you can find her post right HERE. I spy another little boy coming up…!