Why taking photos increases our happiness

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I’m delighted to have my dear friend Heather Walker share her thoughts on photography, and why we take photos of our loved ones. Both her portraits and instagram pictures are filled with so much HEART, and as I view them, I am inspired to see my family in a new way, and capture that joy. I want to learn more from her, so I asked her to share her thoughts once a month on what she loves to capture. You can see a picture of her in the orchard image below with her adorable children.

photography tips

Happiness

This is “why we take photos”

To find, seek, and remember happiness!

This is the first time I’m sharing my thoughts about this subject; and I’ve been digging deep over the last year as I’m in the process of writing an e-book, on this subject I call the “Happiness Mission”, and photography. Since I’m not quite ready to share my book, I was giddy when Kristen asked me if I would guest post each month on one of my favorite subjects in photography, “why we take photos”! Thrilled to be here to share and grow with y’all!

Back to Happiness:

Most likely you agree about the importance of capturing moments in life. But, let me tell you “why” it’s so important, and what I have discovered, through my own personal experience and through research on this subject. My “why” stems from a passion of family and photography. But for those of you who do not have an innate passion to capture your life think about this for motivation: studies show that recalling happy memories significantly increases happiness in the present. This greatly resonated with me and made me understand the origin of my passion for photography. Again, “Recalling happy memories significantly increases happiness in the present!!!!” Isn’t that most of our hopes and dreams for our children and ourselves, Happiness?! Have you read the book, “The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin? She talks about looking for happiness under your own roof and the importance of keeping happy memories vivid with photographs. If you’re a parent you’ve learned the hard way that we don’t often have control of our children’s health, but I do feel I have complete control of their happiness. We work so hard to give our children the best childhood possible and we may feel over time that many of these memories are forgotten. I believe these moments are actually hidden, not forgotten, and the eternal effects of childhood live inside them to make them the person they are today.

Please test my theory by looking through your old photographs. I just pulled a few from my collection to share with you:


A new personal goal of mine has been to record more video of our family life. Last weekend we took a little camping adventure over my daughter’s birthday with friends and I just pieced together my favorite clips for my family to look back on to keep our happy memories vivid. Happy to share it with you and hope you’ll find inspiration from it.

I look forward to sharing more here! Until then, I Instagram almost daily under heatherwalkerphotos. And you can follow along with my weekly project here.

Heather, you’ve got such a way with words! I’ve always said that I take lots of pictures so that my family will remember ME, and that I WAS THERE in their lives, but also because I don’t remember much that isn’t in pictures. But how you described happiness with photography, completely resonates with me!

To see more fun things Heather and I have done together, check out the links below:

Mother/Daughter Getaway

The birth of her baby Bennett

How Heather decorates with pictures

My family pictures at HOME

Tree Lot family pictures

Family Pillow Fight (of our friend Tricia)

My Besties and Me

My Fam with a Quilt

 

If you’d to join the Capturing Joy Photo Club on Facebook, where we have photo challenges, Q&A’s, and image sharing, request to join HERE: https://www.facebook.com/groups/CapturingJoyPhotoClub/

Capturing Joy Photo Club

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