i heart faces- "best face of 2010"

"Keep your face always towards the sunshine- and shadows will fall behind you." - Walt Whitman

To ring in the new year, i heart faces is looking back at the last year in photos and asking for the best face photo of 2010. This was a difficult task as I think back to my year in photos. I have pictures of my children and other people that I think are fabulous and, really, how could I ever choose between those?  

The more I thought about it, the more this one particular picture kept coming back to me. I fell in love with it back in July and I still am head over heels for this particular capture. I chose it, not just because of the handsome subject whom I love dearly.  While I do love this picture because of the just out of the pool messy hair, the freckled nose,  sparkly blue eyes, perfect lips and his beautiful soul shining through.  I  also love it because it represents the evolution of my photography. And that is why I chose it.

I had just completed two fabulous online photography workshops and was at a point where I was extremely comfortable shooting 100% in manual. I had finally grasped where I wanted my focus to be and was able to nail it, most of the time. This picture also represents how far I have come with my editing. This picture was actually a full-length view of my son that I cropped in for compositions sake. I edited it in Lightroom creating my own black and white conversion which I was thrilled with. Then to make the photo more interesting I added a Florabella texture. When I was done, I could not stop staring at this beautiful picture of my beautiful boy.

I am still trying to figure out what my "photographic vision" is. I know I want to capture people being who they are but in an artistic way that brings out their most beautiful, inherent self. I think I have always been working at that and if this picture represents anything, it represents the fact that I am on my way to that particular "photographic vision". 

I look forward to the year ahead in pictures. Capturing life as we see it, live it and love it. xo


To view some beautiful faces of 2010, click on the link below!