When I document my family’s life I enjoy doing it in either black and white or color photographs.
This week I decided to challenge myself  by trying to see my photos in black and white as I took them. I always shoot in color and convert to black and white in case I want a color version of my image one day. There are some photographs which simply scream black and white to me.

I love how black and white can strip away the distractions and focus the viewer on the scene or subject within the frame.

Sometimes I need this in life too. I need to remove the distractions and focus on what’s in the frame, not the distractions around me.

I’ve been taking more social media breaks lately.

I was doing this anyhow, but really started to take it more seriously when I realized I couldn’t hear my own voice beyond the noises of social media.

There is so much pressure anymore to make ourselves and our lives look just right on social media.

It’s even spilled into the photography world where photos have all started to look the same. There is a certain style out there these days and it seems to many photographers are afraid to break away from that style and make their own style. I find myself caught up in this effort to fit in too, whether it is in the photography or the Facebook world.

That’s why a break is needed, to remember who you are and why you fell in love with photography in the first place, if it’s the photography world that’s screaming at you, or remember who you are in general, if it’s the social world screaming at you from so many different directions.