Beyond Motherhood | Rediscover your True North

It may be rather pedestrian, but my interest in photography began when my kids were little (4, 7, 10, & 13).

And cute.

And not at all camera averse.

To be precise, it began not too long after I started this blog (2008).  We were living away from family and friends and I wanted to keep an online journal of our life, complete with photos, so they could keep up on the goings on of the VonSosens.  The more I hopped around the web and read other blogs, the more I realized that my photos were really awful (If you go back far enough in this blog, you’ll see what I’m talking about).  So I pulled my camera manual out and actually read it from cover to cover.  I realized that I actually had a pretty decent camera and I should probably figure out how to use it.

Thus began my self education. I collected a horde of workshops along the way, online and in-person.  My kids were always happy to jump in at a moment’s notice to help me practice techniques.  When I was learning about panning, my son was there on his bike at the ready.  When the technique was shutter speed, the kids were happy to climb on our bed and jump as high as they could.  Low light was met with midnight refrigerator raids by anyone still awake.  My daughter was always up for a shoot during the golden hour if it meant she could post it on her Insta feed. In short, I have a drawer full of hard drives documenting my kids throughout their childhoods. (I’ve actually printed some too, although not enough.  Print out your photos!)

Now here I am seven years later with a much better camera (or two), a small arsenal of lenses, a portrait business that I absolutely love, and kids/adults who have gotten older (I’ll let you do the math) and have their own things going on.  One’s married and living the newlywed life.  One’s just finishing up high school this year, getting ready to set out on his own soon.  One is in the trenches of his freshman year of high school and towers over me by at least 7 inches.  And my youngest is happy to be front of my camera as long as there’s a monetary or Lego reward involved.

Life is different as a photographer when your kids are older.

When my daughter, my muse, left for college a few years ago, I started to worry what would happen to me as a photographer when my kids were all grown up.  I still loved photography.  I still wanted to learn and grow and experiment but how would that work when I didn’t have my kids to model for me?  And with an Instagram feed full of beautiful little kids bouncing on beds and eating ice cream cones and running through sprinklers and snuggling with their dog, where would I fit into the photography community as a photographer with older kids?  How would I stay relevant?  Where would I find inspiration?  Where would I point my camera?  What would I do with all of the knowledge and skills I’d accumulated?  Would I still be a ‘Mom with a camera’?

Let me be clear, I love my portrait business and my clients and have never had any intentions on giving that up.  But my growth and experimentation has always happened outside of my business with personal projects and personal work with my kids.   My passion for photography has always come from the desire to document my kids in a beautiful way.  I take all of that experience, knowledge, and skill into my business so my clients can benefit from what I’ve learned so that they will have beautiful photos of their own families.  But the growth and experimentation happens on my own time not on my clients’ time.

These questions and concerns have been on my mind for several years.  I’ve had conversations with other photographers who are in the same boat as I am.  We’ve decided that it’s like we’ve “gone dark”.  Without photos of our kids, we’re left posting photos of our breakfast or our sneakered feet, or our dog.  Or nothing at all.  Our kids certainly don’t want us embarrassing them by posting photos on our social media feeds of them studying for the SAT or getting ready for a date or playing video games.  It’s a strange turning point.  Without little kids, it’s easy to just hang up your camera and declare the end of a phase in life.   

I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be so!  I want you to rediscover your passion and curiosity for photography and find your True North – your purpose for photography – not only while the kids are little, but throughout your life.  I’ve been working on this myself and can tell you that photography doesn’t have to end when the kids are grown.  Your purpose just has to be redirected into other things that you’re passionate, or simple just curious, about. You may just find that you’ve changed from a ‘Mom with a camera’ to a ‘Photographer with a camera’.

I’m so excited to be teaming up with The Bloom Forum to teach a 3 week workshop to help you do just that!  It’s called Beyond Motherhood – Finding your True North and I’ll be teaching it January 25- February 14.