Yesterday I was reading an article from the Wall Street Journal on the lengths parents are going to for great high school photos, including professional makeup artists, hair, and a whole photographer entourage for year book photos. I wish I could say I didn’t understand where they were coming from.

I have photo envy.

A little envy isn’t a bad thing. I am friends with several professional photographers on facebook. When they post their photos I want to grab my camera and emulate them. I try to recreate their masterpieces. Often I end up with an interesting photo, and I always learn something new. Imitating others is one of my favorite ways to learn. Yes, a little photo envy is good.

The problem arises, however, when I see photos I can’t emulate because I can’t go back in time, i.e. wedding photos and newborn photos. They don’t even need to be professional, just different from anything I have. In this situation photos envy can be paralyzing. Rather then growing and learning with my camera, I dwell on what I didn’t think to capture. Self doubt creeps in, and I find myself less inclined to pick up my camera. That same feeling also fills me with regret for not doing professional photos. I wouldn’t be missing photos if I hired a professional. And if I hired a professional I’m sure my thought process would be I wouldn’t be missing photos if I hired a better, more expensive professional.

I need to get past photo envy, but how?

I figure for a first step I need to force myself to focus on the positive of what I do have, and convince myself that I do have more good photos than I think I do. I decided to play a little game: find my top 5 favorite photos that I’ve never shared before. Not here or facebook. They must be taken by me and near duplicates of any that I have posted is cheating.

This is going to be hard. There are a lot of photos to go through, and I can be super critical. But, hey, if it gets some good photos out of the dusty corners of my hard drive and into the light, all the better.

My Favorite Never Before Been Seen Photos

1) Playing in her gym

While this one isn’t a stand out from a technical standpoint, I can’t help but be drawn into that smile and those eyes. She loves her gym and I love her smile! I’m also a sucker for a lite up, perfectly in focus eye.

2) My attempt at being artsy

When I was going through my folder I realized I had surprisingly few profiles, and no true profile. I think it’d be fun to have on that shows the shape of her head. This weekend when when I can utilize my super simply baby photography secrete weapon (aka, Domingo) I will have to take more!

3) Mommy Daughter Love

Nicki at just six weeks old!

I did a series of these with a tripod before going off auto. If you look closely, you can see the camera remote in my left hand. Despite being high ISO they all have a too long exposure, creating motion blur. This is one of the few ones with such crisp eyes. It’s not the most flattering photo of me, but what can I say? I’m such a sucker for those eyes.

4) Feet in Domingo’s hands & holding my hands! (I’m counting this as one. My game, I get to bend the rules 🙂 )

Nicki’s feet are a bit smaller than the other babies her age at day care (sorry kid, you have short parents with little feet and big bobble heads and it’s apparently genetic.) I think I can get away with the “newborn” photo even though she was seven months old in these photos. I was happy to have a chance to redo these photos, I have learned so much about photography in the past ten months. One of the reasons I like this pairing so much is I think it shows so much improvement photographically speaking from the first fingers and toes photos. Mommy got good with her camera!

5.) Sleeping Beauty

While I love the shadows and light in this one, it’s a stand out also by the memories it invokes. I love that she’s sleeping 11+ hours in the crib these days, but I still miss my little pooky sleeping next to me. I miss leaning over and seeing this sight in the middle of the night. I miss the funny little noises she made while sleeping, even the not so little noises. I miss the way she’d play with her feet while she waited for me to wake up and get her. I miss the newborn stage! Why can’t they stay tiny forever?!

There we have it, my top 5(ish) never before been seen favorite photos.

My next step in combating photo envy will be to convince myself that I have enough good photos by hanging some up around the house. I’m thinking of another canvas print over the mantle, this time of the whole family. It’ll go nicely with the wedding painting we had done. Maybe something like our anniversary photo, but without the disheveled pillows in the background. Ut oh, better sign off before that photo envy starts to creep back in again.