My Beautiful Child

She's ten now, and portrait sessions aren't as easy as they once were. Tweenage ( that might be a word I just made up) self-consciousness has set in and it's all I can do to get her to stop putting on the fake smile the bloody school photographer seems to have ingrained in her.

I'm going to have words with the school photographer next time I see her.

She used to do a brilliant grumpy-stonefish-face, and it's been quite difficult getting her to be that free with herself with a lens in front of her these days. I'm a bit worried about that. With vapid narcissism prevalent on every kind of social media, from Instagram to WhatsApp, as she grows up, it's going to be harder and harder to protect her, to give her the tools to cope with everything that's going to come her way.

It wasn't all serious. Eventual genuine smiles in the extras. When did extras happen by the way?

One thing I've had to do in the last year is invest in lighter gear, so I don't tire so easily. I'm getting rid of most of my DSLR gear ( not my beloved k3 though ) and replacing it with Fuji stuff. I shot this with an xpro1, and am clearly still ironing out the kinks. I'm nowhere near as natural with it as I am with the Pentax gear. I lost a lot of shots due to iffy focus. All of which is just because I'm not used to it yet.

With that in mind, I might try and do a 100 day blip to force me to use it every day. Being natural with something takes a lot of practice.