The evening before a photo shoot for my company - Athena Scott Photography, is always exciting for me ;-) As I prepare all of the equipment (by packing the cameras, charging the batteries, testing the external flash and making sure that everything is functioning well and ready to go) my heart and mind start to get into my pre-session mode. Those who know me and have seen me with my cameras can probably explain "the mode" but I'll just sum it up...it's like I transform when I pick up that camera and there is this overwelming sense of urgency inside of me to photograph and after it takes over I start photographing like crazy (I mean I'm standing on a chair, down on the floor and all over the place looking for that perfect angle). The passion for what I do really fuels me to continue to strive to exceed my expectations to excel each and every time I'm out there with my camera!
So the day before the shoot I start to envision a perfect photo session. I think about all of the shots I'd love to capture and about all of the different poses I'd like to utilize for each person individually (depending on their age and personality) and then for the family as a whole. I dream of taking beautiful photographs of the children and their families and that these photographs will one day be precious memories of those fond family moments together. I think of the importance of what I do and that the stakes are high to really produce photos that speak for themselves. I do like smiley photos but for me being able to capture "real emotions" of children laughing and the closeness of family members can be a daunting task and my nerves begin to rise as I think about all of my expectations and just pray that I succeed in my goals of creating real photographic art that is expressive and creative, serious and introspective, bubbly and fun. I truly want to capture their personalities, their humor, their love for each other. I want them to be serious, then happy, then goofy...I aim to capture their raw emotions but sometimes it can be difficult for those who are shy to open up to a photographer who is literally behind a big clunky metal machine. Those nerves inside of me and those strong desires to really want to do a great job sometimes force the mommy in me to come out and then I start to act goofy and do silly things to make people laugh and just relax in front of the camera. I don't want them to be stiff and uncomfortable so I have to do everything in my power to help them to feel comfortable being photographed naturally.
As I prepare everything and just sit and think of these things I can't help but thank the Lord for giving me this gift and passion to photograph people ;-) I'm also so thankful that I can ever pursue a business in a field that I love. Ever since I was a little girl I have always loved taking photos. It wasn't until high school that I started to actually study it though. All of those fond memories of being in the darkroom and really creating photographs start to come back and I smile, then those fluffy butterflies come into my stomach and I just can't wait to get out there and do what I do the next day ;-) I get out my photo books and get inspired. I also pray that I am successful in the task that is set before me and give all of my glory to God.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
First Day of Apologia Botany
The kids were super bummed out that we had to miss our Nutrition Co-op today (because Jaedah had literally vomited all night long and just to be safe and not spread around germs we all stayed home). I figured I'd make it up to the kiddos by doing our very first science lesson with the new Apologia Botany curriculum that just arrived yesterday and have a fun nature filled day studying what we learned. First we read the section that defines botany (the study of plants) and the two older kids sat with me on the couch while we did so, then we went over to the table and Isaiah wrote all about what we read - about botany, nature and the use of a magnifying glass in the study of botany. Moriah copied a sentence that I wrote out for her to practice writing letters and words. Then we went outside on this beautiful and warm day to study plants, Isaiah used the magnifying glass to look at leaves up close and personal, then drew some pictures and glued leaves and flowers on to the paper as well. Moriah drew flowers on the chalk board, drew trees and flowers on her clipboard and then made flowers with play-doh. In all, they had a great time learning about plants ;-)
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Homeschooling - A Love of Learning
I guess you can say that I am more of a veteran homeschooling mom, than a new homeschooling mom. Well, I have been in this arena for quite some time now with my oldest child Isaiah who is eight (and halfway through the 2nd grade). I started the journey back in 2004 (when he was 3 1/2), so it's been almost 5 years now!! The time has seemed to fly by and in the process I have learned some pretty important lessons along the way ;-) As I embark on a new journey, this time with my second child, Moriah, who is now 4 1/2 I feel a little more confident than I did the last time around and definitely a whole lot more relaxed as well.
One of the most important thing we can teach our children is: a love of learning. In our minds, or my mind anyway, I always thought that the two words were not synonymous. Love and learning have always seemed like oil and water to me as I was growing up...I always hated school and did it out of obligation. I remember high school and college days forcing myself to study and learn only what was needed to write a paper or pass the test, only to forget the knowledge that I acquired. Therefore, in my own homeschool (when Isaiah was younger - 5 & 6) I had a tendency to push push push when it came to teaching and assigning schoolwork because I somehow felt that he needed to be far above his public school peers and so when I felt that he excelled at something than I pushed him so hard and to the point where he despised the very thing he used to love. This is wrong and I caution you to be aware of your child's resistance in particular areas. If they are struggling in a subject, take it easy or just drop it where you are and come back to it at a later date. If your child loves a subject then foster that love for it, make it fun and exciting. This isn't a race to see how much he/she can learn, because every child learns at their own pace. We as parents need to accept that! We should never compare ourselves with that of other homeschool moms or compare our kids with other kids their age because it can be harmful to us and them as well!! I actually had to step back and reevaluate what I was doing because guess what??! What I was doing wasn't working and it wasn't helping Isaiah to love learning...he was actually hating it and resisting it in every way. School was a nightmare and chore and just to get him to sit down and do it was another struggle. I prayed and fought and struggled and prayed some more and learned the hard way that what I was doing just wasn't working for us. I decided to relax a lot more and not push so much, we went with a literature based curriculm (Sonlight) and basically started incorporating a Charlotte Mason approach to things (with tons of literature, narrating, notebooking) as opposed to a mostly workbooky approach and that is when the Love of Learning came back to my precious boy. I had to let go of the control and let go of the idea of public schooling at home. I now let him orchestrate the subjects that he does each day and allow for explorations of topics that we are not covering in the curriculum by just going to the library and researching various things. Now when I ask him, so how do you think the day went?? He answers, "it was great Mom." He truly loves learning now and I can see that he is so interested in history, science, math, literature, etc. I never was and so it is amazing to see it up close and personal. My heart dances and I just praise God because it took a while to get to this point but we never gave up and constantly had to reevaluate things and modify them to suite our needs.
Now when it comes to Moriah (pre-k) I am so much more relaxed and there is no pressure on her to do as much as I did with Isaiah and you can so see that she is just loving it! We read a ton of books, she colors, she builds houses with her math cubes, we sit down and do reading lessons together and that is it!!! We focus on the three R's mainly (reading, writing and arithmetic) and the rest of the day she plays, uses her imagination and sings songs and I just feel so at peace about it. I don't feel that we need to put all these curriculums on them so early on, remember they have the rest of their lives to do curriculums and learn in group settings, I think that the beginning years need to be free to explore and grow and imagine and learn. They are truly natural little learners at that point. Now it doesn't matter what homeschool style we choose or how they learn (visual, auditory, kinetic, hands-on, etc) as long as we are teaching them to love learning each and everyday.
One of the most important thing we can teach our children is: a love of learning. In our minds, or my mind anyway, I always thought that the two words were not synonymous. Love and learning have always seemed like oil and water to me as I was growing up...I always hated school and did it out of obligation. I remember high school and college days forcing myself to study and learn only what was needed to write a paper or pass the test, only to forget the knowledge that I acquired. Therefore, in my own homeschool (when Isaiah was younger - 5 & 6) I had a tendency to push push push when it came to teaching and assigning schoolwork because I somehow felt that he needed to be far above his public school peers and so when I felt that he excelled at something than I pushed him so hard and to the point where he despised the very thing he used to love. This is wrong and I caution you to be aware of your child's resistance in particular areas. If they are struggling in a subject, take it easy or just drop it where you are and come back to it at a later date. If your child loves a subject then foster that love for it, make it fun and exciting. This isn't a race to see how much he/she can learn, because every child learns at their own pace. We as parents need to accept that! We should never compare ourselves with that of other homeschool moms or compare our kids with other kids their age because it can be harmful to us and them as well!! I actually had to step back and reevaluate what I was doing because guess what??! What I was doing wasn't working and it wasn't helping Isaiah to love learning...he was actually hating it and resisting it in every way. School was a nightmare and chore and just to get him to sit down and do it was another struggle. I prayed and fought and struggled and prayed some more and learned the hard way that what I was doing just wasn't working for us. I decided to relax a lot more and not push so much, we went with a literature based curriculm (Sonlight) and basically started incorporating a Charlotte Mason approach to things (with tons of literature, narrating, notebooking) as opposed to a mostly workbooky approach and that is when the Love of Learning came back to my precious boy. I had to let go of the control and let go of the idea of public schooling at home. I now let him orchestrate the subjects that he does each day and allow for explorations of topics that we are not covering in the curriculum by just going to the library and researching various things. Now when I ask him, so how do you think the day went?? He answers, "it was great Mom." He truly loves learning now and I can see that he is so interested in history, science, math, literature, etc. I never was and so it is amazing to see it up close and personal. My heart dances and I just praise God because it took a while to get to this point but we never gave up and constantly had to reevaluate things and modify them to suite our needs.
Now when it comes to Moriah (pre-k) I am so much more relaxed and there is no pressure on her to do as much as I did with Isaiah and you can so see that she is just loving it! We read a ton of books, she colors, she builds houses with her math cubes, we sit down and do reading lessons together and that is it!!! We focus on the three R's mainly (reading, writing and arithmetic) and the rest of the day she plays, uses her imagination and sings songs and I just feel so at peace about it. I don't feel that we need to put all these curriculums on them so early on, remember they have the rest of their lives to do curriculums and learn in group settings, I think that the beginning years need to be free to explore and grow and imagine and learn. They are truly natural little learners at that point. Now it doesn't matter what homeschool style we choose or how they learn (visual, auditory, kinetic, hands-on, etc) as long as we are teaching them to love learning each and everyday.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
South Florida Sunset
After a full day of activities at the Renaissance Festival with the two older kiddos and their big cousin Lexi, we were all very tired and decided it was time to go home...so we searched and searched for our minivan and after walking for what seemed like all eternity we finally found it ;-) So we sat there and took in this breathtaking view before leaving the parking lot. I stood in awe at the beauty of this amazing sunset and what a mighty God we have ~ who could create such splendor and yet at the same time create such a sense of peace! Thank you Lord!! I just had to take a picture of it on the IPhone (since I seemed to forget the camera at home). Just thought I'd share this ;-)
Saturday, February 20, 2010
www.athenascottphotography.com
Okay, since I'm on a blogging roll right now, I figured I'd write another one because who knows when I'll be back to update it right?! hehehe!! Well, I figured it was appropriate to add a blog for the photo business as well yah know ;-) Well, I have been super busy lately between homeschooling, Moriah's soccer practices, homeschool group activities, gym, and normal homelife that I have kind of put off some of the things that I have been needing to do for the business. This weekend I will be working on designing some new business cards (since my old ones are a bit outdated). I also have several clients to contact (1 maternity, 1 newborn) in regards to photographing them for the Amazing Births & Beyond display project that I need to start working on ASAP!! It is very exciting for me to know that once I finish all of these sessions that I will have my photography work on display for all to see ;-) It is truly a blessing to be able to do what I really love professionally and without conflict to the other thing that I love very much - homeschooling my babies!!
Valentine's Day Photos
When it comes to photography I have no idea why my children are the most difficult kids to work with!!! No wait, I think I know why?! Because I'm their mom!!! So I guess this gives them the ability to wine and complain and stomp away (unlike the many clients I photograph each year who for the most part are very cooperative). In any case, this does not stop me from photographing my kids often and I guess even gives me practice dealing with small children ;-) So I decided it would be fun (or not lol) to photograph them for Valentine's Day, since my mom bought all of the girls matching dresses and even got a red matching shirt for Isaiah. So I decided to go all out and have a friend from church make me some red matching bows and a headwrap for baby Hannah to complete the accessories for the shoot. We went in my aunts yard and I photographed away...of course there were several meltdowns, stompoffs, potty breaks, lunch breaks, crying sessions, you name it and we probably had it...LoL!!! Isaiah even told me, "Mom, I wish you weren't a photographer." Wow!! Despite the drama of the shoot we still came out with some lovely shots thankfully!! Remind me not to photograph them like that for a while, whewww!!!
Two New Homeschool Curriculums
I am very excited to announce that I just purchased two new curriculums for our homeschool. After sitting down with Isaiah to kind of reevaluate our homeschool (and surveying his likes vs dislikes). I came to the conclusion that we would make school more fun and follow along more of a Charlotte Mason approach to things. Thus I allowed him to drop the phonics and handwriting workbooks all together and instead he will do more copywork from the literature that he reads and also narrate more for history. We currently use Sonlight for history, literature, geography, readers, read alouds, language arts and science; and Math U See for math. We will also be dropping Sonlight science in exchange for something totally new! After hearing (and reading) so many good things about Apologia Botany I decided to go with it.
I intend on incorporating this new science curriculum (which will have many fun science projects) and we will also be adding in a fun art elective called Artistic Pursuits (which will basically teach the children about art history, famous artwork, and art techniques to create their very own works of art). I will teach both subjects twice a week to Isaiah and Moriah. The curriculums will both have a reading portion and a project portion. The Science will also have vocabulary, copywork and notebooking assignments mainly for Isaiah to do. We are very excited to get into these studies because the kids are interested in learning about seeds, plants, and the study of them and they both really love doing art projects. A few weeks ago we did a project with a kidney bean and watched it grow into a huge plant, this interested them very much. We are all really looking forward to the mail deliveries this week ;-)
I intend on incorporating this new science curriculum (which will have many fun science projects) and we will also be adding in a fun art elective called Artistic Pursuits (which will basically teach the children about art history, famous artwork, and art techniques to create their very own works of art). I will teach both subjects twice a week to Isaiah and Moriah. The curriculums will both have a reading portion and a project portion. The Science will also have vocabulary, copywork and notebooking assignments mainly for Isaiah to do. We are very excited to get into these studies because the kids are interested in learning about seeds, plants, and the study of them and they both really love doing art projects. A few weeks ago we did a project with a kidney bean and watched it grow into a huge plant, this interested them very much. We are all really looking forward to the mail deliveries this week ;-)
Rennaissance Festival
In our homeschool group we decided that it would be fun to ask our children one question: "What is it that you would like to learn about?" After all that is why we homeschool right?! Well I thought it was a great idea to take Isaiah to the Rennaissance Festival because he wanted to learn about Medieval Times. So we loaded up the minivan and took a short trip down to Deerfield Beach and met with some close friends. At the Festival Zay learned about the swords that they used during that time, got to watch a Joust (with the costumed men on horses & women dressed up on the sidelines cheering), saw a Tribal circus, he did a sword fight against buddy Zion in front of a large group of people, saw many people dressed up in the clothing that they would have worn during that time, listened to festive music, he shared a huge turkey leg with his cousin. He bought a couple of swords and enjoyed sword fighting with his buddies most of the time and we walked around and just took the whole experience in. In all, he learned a lot and had a ton of fun at the same time!!Now on to the next topic of interest...Deep sea animals!!! Looks like our family vacation to Sea World in March will be a great opportunity to fully experience these amazing animals!!! We already have a few books from the library to start reading ;-) I love how we can make this homeschooling adventure so exciting and rich in real in experiences. It really is fostering a love of learning in this household and I'm loving every minute of it!
Friday, February 5, 2010
New Beginnings
Ok...so it's been over a year since I last updated my photo blog. I must admit that I took a pretty long break from all things photography since the last session, well with the pregnancy and then birth of baby Hannah in March 2009 I felt that it was appropriate to focus on getting our family adjusted to the new addition...that and the sleepless nights and the 24/7 nursing pretty much took precedence in the Scott household. In November of 2009 I decided it was time to get back into the swing of photography work and have been slowly but surely working on getting things going again. I am currently in the works of redesigning my website and updating my business cards, etc. I also decided to change the look and feel of my blog...I will now incorporate a lot more of our homeschooling journey and kind of combine the two into one.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)