For the first of the 12 posts I am doing this year, I am presenting something beyond a photograph. I have made a video! It is just a minute of our life this morning, the 12th of January, 2017, but it is actually much more than you may see at first. What this video represents is me learning from my kids. I am beginning to see that finding happiness means letting go of my rules and expectations…at least a little bit. I am allowing myself to be an observer of the details and seeing that happiness can be found when you break the rules.

I have tossed Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Decisive Moment into the Photographing Happiness Facebook Group as the theory to discuss this month. I chose this particular theory to start with because I feel that even a loose translation of his process is a place anyone can begin to improve their photography at absolutely any skill level. Concentrating on seeing and documenting moments helps to slow us down, become less intrusive with our picture taking and frankly, enjoy the small stuff. Learning to represent these moments in photographs means learning about timing, framing and composition. To challenge my own work using this theory, I have been concentrating on my underwater photography. To be more precise, I have been trying to capture that moment that includes the world above the water and under the surface. I am fascinated with that and beginning to get better and capturing it. Here are my 12 shots for the month. I have shared many more on Instagram as they happen… These comprise a roundup of the outtakes in a way…

Below you will find the images being shared on Instagram by everyone using our #photographinghappiness tag.

If you would like to join us, hop on over to the Facebook group and become part of our community where we are dedicated to a year of growing our photography skills as well as our ability to notice and appreciate the details. Later on this year, I will be doing Q&A as well as Live Videos on my Sesame Ellis Facebook page now that I have the little blue check, so make sure you like the page and check back often for updates! I am excited to be able to help my community more in 2017!

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