Today I finally followed the advice my photography professor gave me almost eight years ago. I had been struggling to get my camera to focus on exactly what I wanted it to, and he suggested that I needed to learn to use back button focus. He went on to explain that because my passion was lifestyle photography I would benefit from the ability it gives to focus on a plane where your subjects can move around within.
I’ve dabbled with the idea of back button focus, looked up a few tutorials of how it works, but never really put the time into figuring it out before I needed to use it. However, after a less than spectacular senior photo shoot with my eldest daughter and with recital photos around the corner I decided that today was the day to up my game, and I’m glad I put the time in. It was way more involved than I thought it would be. Which is probably why I haven’t been able to get it to work before.
The other reason I chose today was because this week has really been rough and I needed to take a step back and learn something new and pretend that I can be competent in and accomplished at something. I’m not saying that I’m a master, but I can see a glimmer of hope that my photography will get better, because it’s been kinda crappy lately, and I hate it when I let people I love down.
I’ve also been struggling a lot with feeling like my life is in an endless loop, which it kinda is. When you’ve been parenting as long as I have things tend to repeat. I love the kids and I am so grateful I can stay home with youngest three and teach them, but even when the choices are mine and I know they are the right ones, and the ones I want, I can still feel trapped.
I chose to get married young and have kids both as a younger mom and now as an older mom. (There is a nineteen year gap between my oldest and my youngest.) I don’t regret my choices but that doesn’t always make them easy. It also doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes think about what my life would be like if I made different choices either.
I always come back to the same conclusion though. I wouldn’t change anything major. Sure I’d make a little change here or there. I be more understanding, slower to judge, less critical in a moment of frustration. There are things I wouldn’t have said, times I would have listened better. The typical parenting course corrections and changes we all make as we look back and see how we could have been better, but ultimately my life would be pretty much the same.
I mean really, who would I cut out? Which child would I get rid of? What person could I live without? No one. They are my everything. I would not want to live without a single one of them. So, on days like today where the week has been really tough, when I’ve woken up every morning with the hope of a bright new day only to have it shattered by 9 am, it might be time for me to change my focus just a bit.
Here is where we come full circle. See my photography has been really struggling the past few years because I couldn’t get the focus I needed to show the proper perspective on my subjects. It’s like the pictures above. At first glance you might think they are all the same picture, but they aren’t. Through the miracle of back button focus I was able to focus on exactly what I wanted in each shot.
In the first shot the focus is on the front brushes. In the second shot the focus is on the chipped flower on the pitcher. And in the third shot the focus is on the left eye of the front cup. It has been a long time since I’ve been able to dial in my focus this well without a tripod and focusing manually. Which has been pretty impossible lately because my eyesight went wonky and I didn’t realize how bad it was until I got glasses, but that is a story for another day.
Anyways, focus is important because it changes the depth of field and thus our perspective. In this picture here the focus was on my struggling little lemon tree. I just really liked the way the light was shining through the leaves accentuating the veins. Because the pictures in the art gallery behind the tree are almost on the same plane they are mainly in focus too. But the chair that is a few feet in front of the tree has only basic definition and nothing out of the window is discernible. All you can see is my poor struggling little tree, trying its best to survive in a climate it is not made for, and a very chaotic gallery window behind.
My life is like that sometimes. I’m so focused on one little part of the picture that I can’t discern anything else. My perspective is limited by my focus, and if I’m not choosing my focus carefully I become lost.
But look what happens when I choose to focus on something outside the window. It’s a different photo with a different story to tell. I didn’t change my position in the room. I just told my camera to focus on something different for a moment. That’s what I needed today was a different focus, not to leave the room. The room I’m in is a good place. I just needed a little change of perspective.
My choice today to take a step back and focus more on learning a new skill than teaching new skills was not without it’s repercussions. Without constant guidance my oh so clever and creative youngest daughters made a whole family of plastic silverware people with a whole backstory of their very complicated interconnected lives. There were also new “skincare” products made and tested in the bathroom, and the pile of towels and miscellaneous laundry in the laundry room is still not folded and put away.
But I guess that’s life. That’s the process of adjusting and finding your focus from day to day, finding new beauty and detail in something you’ve done a thousand times and will continue to do a thousand more. That’s the beauty of focus and perspective. You can change so much without ever leaving the spot you are called to tend just by changing the way you choose to look at it.
Life with Leathra 
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