Every once in a while you need a break from reading what I have to say, so today I would like to welcome a new guest blogger – my friend, and fabulous lifestyle photographer, Jen Brown to the blog. She is here to share some tips on taking better photos. Let’s give a warm welcome to Jen….

Hi all! I am Jen from Jen Faith Brown Photography and I am honored to be guest posting here at Paisley Layne Photography. You can find me blogging about photography and sharing tips on taking better photos over at www.jenniferfaithbrownphotography.blogspot.com. I am also on Facebook and Instagram. I would love for you to come stop by and take a look around!.

For as far back as I can remember, I have loved flipping through old photos. Looking through photos of my parents when they were little was fascinating to me. Looking through old baby books from my childhood gives a couple good laughs.  I distinctly remember loving to look through old drill team scrapbooks when I was in high school. Every photo is almost like a little mystery and behind the scenes look at what life was like at that time. Well, my mother-in-law, Diana, brought home several old photos from her family’s farm house recently and while looking through them, I realized a couple things.

What I learned From Nana’s Photos…

1. Meaningful Photos Don’t Need to Be Perfect

If you look at my photos for all of 2 seconds, you will realized I am a documentary and lifestyle photographer. I absolutely love taking photos of the small moments, the every day occurrences, and loving interactions between people. Thankfully this style works well for photographing my three crazy boys. I take hundreds of photos of them a month and there is no way they will all be perfect. However, I love the imperfect photos just the same. When I looked at Diana’s old photos, not one time did I think ‘oh, this is a cute picture, but the lighting looks weird’ or ‘hmm…the composition is off on this adorable photo’. I simply enjoyed looking back to see what she looked like when she was younger, what the farm looked liked, what Brad’s grandma whom I never met looked like, how silly my husband looked when he was young. Documenting your life in photos doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to capture the moments.

3. Print Your Photos

Haven’t we heard this a million times? Print your photos! While I have some photos in a photo book, (and some photos printed individually and many more on a hard drive, but I digress) I don’t think that is the same as being able to hold a single photograph in your hand. If you see in the photos above, these books don’t have the photos displayed in any sort of fancy fashion. Yet, I didn’t care when I looked through the pages. I wouldn’t care if all the photos were in a shoe box. Simply, the photos need to be printed so they can be passed down to the next generations. I heard on the radio that our generation will be the most photographed yet least documented because people don’t print photos as often. I need to bite the bullet and pay to get my thousands of photos printed!

4. Get In the Photo

OK, so maybe I didn’t realize this tip from Nana’s photos, but I feel I must reiterate how important it is to be in the photo. Be it by yourself, with loved ones, with children, with friends…YOU are important and need to be photographed. Your children want to know about you and your life. That means you need to get over the ‘need to lose 15 pounds’ issues and get in the dang photo.

Here is a photo of myself and my three boys. Guess what? I really don’t like this photo of me for various reasons. However, I love that we all look happy, it is real life, and my kids will know I was hugely present in their lives and they are loved more than they will ever understand. That is what is important and why I am in photos with my kids regardless of how I feel about my appearance.

Thanks again to Kendra from Paisley Layne Photography for letting me take over the blog today! Remember to stop by my blog and say hi! www.jenniferfaithbrownphotography.com

Jen Faith Brown is a family photographer specializing in storytelling family photography session, either in home or on location. Jen is married with three young sons who keep her quite busy and give her abundant practice in photographing always-moving children! Jen is now booking 2015 sessions in Flower Mound, Southlake, Highland Village, Lewisville, Coppell, Frisco, and surround DFW areas. Please visit www.jenfaithbrownphotography.com for pricing and to view sample galleries.