Comparison will steal your JOY.

Let me ask you...do you ever compare yourself to others only to be left feeling less than adequate, sad, and discouraged?

You're not alone.

As I was preparing to take some newborn shots of Lily I hopped on the computer to check out some ideas from other newborn photographers. In my search I found some amazingly talented photographers. Their pictures were stunning. They were able to manipulate those tiny little newborns into the cutest poses and had such fun backdrops and props.

I was inspired but at the same time I found myself getting discouraged about taking my own pictures of Lily. The thoughts that began to run through my head were, I'm not nearly as talented as these ladies, why should I even try?, and I'll never be good enough. Lucky for me I stopped myself before I got too far into the pity party. I then reminded myself that nothing good would come out of comparison and self doubt. I'm good in my own right. My style is different, I capture natural, basically unposed pictures and I do it well. So I have no reason to compare my talents to others.

These are some of my favorite quotes encouraging us not to compare ourselves...

 Of course I couldn't leave you without posting some pictures of my Lily...

The specs on all of the following pictures are: 

ISO 400, 50mm, f/2.0, 1/160th sec.  

Natural window light. 

Edited in Lightroom by:

 decreasing the saturation to -44, increasing the temperature to +20, decreasing the clarity to -9, and increasing the brightness to +7.