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The lost art of real photography | Pennsylvania Documentary Photography

/ Lisa R. Howeler

I was admiring a photo on Instagram the other day and tried to imagine how the photographer was talented enough to capture an entire family in silhouette in front of the most amazing sunset. Honestly, those photos make me doubt my photography skills a bit even though those type of images are not my style. It turned out the photographer was talented enough to capture the family in one take but the sunset was an overlay she added later. In other words, the photo, like many you see today, was an enhanced image and therefore an inaccurate view of reality.

Many times even those amazing sun flares we photographers swoon over are, in fact, fake and were never even in the original, out of camera, image. It is unfortunate that I know find myself looking at a photo, admiring it and the wondering “I wonder if that sunflare or those bubbles were actually there or if the photographer added them in Photoshop.”

Yes, I edit my photos, such as lowering highlights or adding some color, which is often needed in the RAW format I shoot in, but, no, I don’t add skies or elements that weren’t there in the first place. I won’t say I never have done this, because I have, once or twice. In fact, I recently edited a child out of a photo because he wasn’t mine and the image was stronger without him. I immediately felt guilty at having changed the reality of the moment and essentially erasing a person because they didn’t fit my idea of how I wanted to remember that moment.

The problem with all this editing and adding elements that were never there is photographers have only added to the world’s already warped idea of perfection. Little girls and boys today grow up believing they have to look a certain way because that’s how the women and men in the magazines look. If only all young girls and boys, and even women and men, understood that photos in the magazines are often manipulated to the point that who you see on the page is not who you would see if you were to bump into these women and men on the street.

I can’t even imagine how difficult life is for the person in the photograph because they are expected to always look like the woman or man the photo editor created.

Many photo editors are insanely talented and true artists. Their work and their ability to transform the photos a photographer has taken is to be commended. What I hope many will remember is that their final creation is not always reality.

I edit my photos by enhancing colors or converting to black and white and darkening and brightening shadows to bring my vision into focus. I very rarely remove or add elements (people, pets, bubbles, sunsets) that were or were not there. If I do I feel uneasy, as I mentioned above.

It isn’t that I believe my more minimalist style of editing makes me better than photographers and photo editors who take editing to the extreme. Not at all. It’s simply my style of photography.  I believe both styles are art.

I choose to keep my images as true to reality as I can. Maybe that’s because I understand how harmful an altered perception of reality can be to our society as a whole, not only the youth. Maybe it’s also because I was trained as a journalist to report the truth, the good and bad, because by doing that you present an accurate account for historical purposes. I know that many reading this may scoff at the idea of journalists today being accurate in their reporting and I’ll leave my comments on that for another day because that is an entire blog post in itself.

Even though I prefer my images to be more documentary, I can’t deny the art behind the heavily edited or manipulated image, so I hope it doesn’t sound like I am condemning those images. Manipulating and changing a photograph can help the artist create their vision and I recognize and absolutely understand that. I do, however, see the unfortunate side affect of the viewer believing the image is real and I think that if a photograph has been manipulated that much the photographer or photo editor should be willing to say they manipulated the image.
 

The camera is much more than a recording apparatus, it is a medium via which messages reach us from another world.
                                                                                          ~Orson Welles

This post is part of 99 days of blogging with Melissa Firman

I wish I was a better mother

/ Lisa R. Howeler

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I wish I was better at being a mom.

I wish I didn’t cry like a toddler when my toddler won’t nap on the one day I really needed one myself.

I wish I didn’t let curse words fly out when she won’t sleep and when I know better and when I’m supposed to be that good Christian who never makes a mistake.

I wish I didn’t get grumpy on the days she gets grumpy.

I wish I didn’t get aggravated beyond belief when my 9 year old stares at me blank when I ask him why he didn’t brush his teeth last night or why he isn’t eating his dinner or why he’s playing Minecraft when I told him to do his homework.

I wish I was the mom from the books and the movies and the TV shows who pulls her children on her lap every single time they have a break down and hugs them and tells them it’s OK if they cry, mama doesn’t mind not getting sleep or not getting a break or never eating a warm meal.

If I was that mom then I wouldn’t feel so guilty. If I was that mom then I wouldn’t have to cry instead of nap when the toddler finally does fall asleep. If I was that mom I wouldn’t sit and wonder if some day my kids are going to tell all their friends about all the mistakes I make and all their friends are going to feel bad for them because their moms never do that stuff.

Some days it is just flat out exhausting wishing to be someone different so you can be better for your kids.

This is the part of the post I should write something encouraging and uplifting about how all you can do is try, but today I’m not feeling it. I’m just feeling the discouragement, the failure and the sadness at all the motherhood missteps I made.

 

Woe is me, the temporarily wallowing in her misery mom, who I guess, needs to remind herself if she wasn’t at least a somewhat good mom then none of this would bother her.

 

 

Bubbles and sun | Elmira, N.Y. Photographer

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

We’ve had so much rain lately that when the sun finally broke it was definitely a welcome sight.

Life feels like that sometimes.

When it’s sad and dark for so long and so many trials face you, even the smallest glimmer of hope seems that much more wonderful and better.

Today’s post is part of a 10 on 10 blog circle where we post ten photos on the tenth day of the month. Continue the circle at Lais Livone.

10 on 10 for March | Athens, PA Photographer

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

This is part of the 10 on 10 post I do each month with a group of ladies from The Bloom Forum. Find the link to the next blog at the end of the post!

After a couple weeks of bitter cold, spring came this week. My kids and I had such severe cabin fever we spent most of our time outside as soon as my son was off of school. We didn’t do anything very exciting during our outdoor adventures, we simply enjoyed the warmth and sun. We went from colder temperatures on Saturday, where my son and his friend were wearing winter coats on the empty playground, to temperatures in the mid 60s and then 70s for the rest of the week. Shedding our winter coats felt so amazing that even when the sun set in the evening and it was a little cooler we still kept our coats off and sat in the yard, afraid if we went inside Spring would disappear again.

 

I expected my son to want to visit a playground on one of the warmer days but instead he wanted to spend time in our backyard. I soon learned it was because he wanted to be a daredevil by running up a board and jumping over our fence and by finding ways to prop the board up to make it even more dangerous to play on. I remember writing not too long ago about how my children are competing to see who can give me gray hair first and the competition still seems to be on.

 

The board eventually broke and luckily my son wasn’t hurt when he fell. Before the board broke a tall chair my 17-month old had climbed up in fell over with her on it. Most days I seem to be looking from side to side and in front of and behind me to see which child is leaping off which dangerous thing and which one I have to tell to stop before they get hurt and their mother ends up in the ER with stress induced panic attacks. But at least it will be nice out while I have the attack! 

 

 

Continue the circle with Laurie Schultz

 

Her little face | Elmira, NY Photography

/ Lisa R. Howeler

This photo was taken by sitting the camera at an odd angle and not even looking into the viewfinder because I couldn’t get into the position I needed to get the shot I wanted. If I start Yoga up again maybe I can get into that position some day.. When I knew bending down was going to rip my back out more and give my chiropractor even more business, I put the camera on my knee and shot up because I desperately wanted that backlight around her cute little head. This shot was also edited in Lightroom to give the image even more of the feel I was looking for.

10 on 10 February | Athens, Pennsylvania Photographer

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

This post is part of the monthly 10 on 10 blog circle. Be sure to catch the next photographer in the circle by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

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I am convinced my children have joined forces to see who can turn my hair gray quicker. My 16 month old has been walking since she was nine months old and is now climbing anything and everything in our house.

My oldest is nine and every other night he takes cushions off couches or moves stools to make what looks like a gymnastics tumbling facility or a basic training obstacle course. 

The baby fell off the back of a chair the other night and slammed Into several of her toys on the way down. I was convinced she’d broken several ribs. She cried for 20 seconds, let me hold her for five seconds and then headed back to the chair to climb on it again.

 About a month before that she fell off the back of the couch and slammed her head off a bookcase. I knew she’d cracked her head open and blood was pouring from it. Nope. She cried for two minutes, let me hold her a few minutes and five minutes later climbed up to the back of the couch again. 

The same week of the couch and bookcase incident I found the whitest, thickest hair right at the front of the top of my head. I swear the kids sat in my son’s room, listening to me moan over it and cackled while they rubbed their hands together.

Then they planned who could come up with the most dangerous, scary, daredevil move the next time and laughed as they thought of me clutching my chest as I watched through mommy goggles.

(To continue this blog circle visit Life with a peanut and a zoybean)

Hey, mama, you got this!

/ Lisa R. Howeler

Hey, mama. Did you just have a c-section, or maybe just a rough labor? First of all, don’t compare yourselves to other moms and say “She’s up and around and had her baby a week ago. I should be doing the same thing!”

Every mama is different because each body is different. Let your body heal. Let your soul heal and rest. Enjoy your new baby and know that the healthier you are, the better you can care for your baby. I want to repeat: enjoy your baby. Your house doesn’t have to look perfect for the in-laws.
You don’t have to cook. Order food in or make something simple, or ask a family member to make you something special. You aren’t in this alone.

There are many, many other moms out there who know just what you’re going through. Find some and know that even if they “look perfect” that doesn’t mean they are.
Their house is dirty sometimes. Sometimes they yell at their children. Sometimes they cry. No matter what their Facebook or Instagram shows, their lives are not all sun and white walls. You’ve got this, mama!

Your body grew a human being! It may even be feeding your baby right now, as you hold your baby outside of the womb. You’re incredible even in the toughest moments when you feel like you can’t do anything right and you’re clueless.

I’ll let you in on a secret – most moms feel clueless and are simply flying by the seat of their pants. Take it one day at a time.

All you have to do is love your baby because in the end, that’s all that matters.

10 on 10 January | Pennsylvania Photographer

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 9 Comments

It was like she had found the most exciting location in the world the way my daughter stomped her tiny 15 month old, boot-clad feet in the mud puddle in the park of a city we’d visited for the day.

We hadn’t brought extra socks so her dad and I wavered between telling her and her brother to stop playing with the icy water and not wanting to squealch their childhood fun.

Water splashed out onto the brick road and up her legs and she threw her head back and giggled.

And when she giggled her brother laughed. But with the laughter I remember tension and sadness because I didn’t let my nine year old splash as much as he would have liked. He was wearing his school shoes and we didn’t want him to get them wet and dirty.

I’m not good at being a strict parent. I’d rather be the parent who has fun and lets my children have fun, unless they are risking their safety.

I remember my son’s sad, disappointed expression on his face, the way he looked at his sister, as if to say “she can stomp in the puddle, why can’t I?” Looking back I wish I had let him stomp in that puddle. The fun of splashing with his sister was much more important than his shoes, which, if we had had to, we could have found the money to replace.

I look at these moments that leave me with a twinge of sadness as learning moments. The next time we’re near a puddle I’ll let him jump in, as I always have before and did one day after school, ignoring the other parents watching as my son jumped up and down and sat in the muddy water of a deep puddle.

Life is too short to worry about mud covered shoes and too precious to give away moments of pure joy and laughter. (Even though his shoes are these really cool light-up Batman shoes and I’d hate to have had them ruined with the muddy water, so, yeah, maybe it was OK to say no this time. Ha!)

This post is part of a blog circle with a group of other photographers. We post 10 photos on the 10th day of the month. To continue the circle visit Katie Brenkert!