It has been a snowy spring break for us so needless to say finding the energy to do things was a little difficult (it’s been going on 7 months of winter here!) but when we saw the opportunity to do a mother-daughter paint night we took it! I have never done one before and my girls are little artists so it sounded like the best idea. I was a little nervous because I can’t even draw decent looking stick men but the girls were both so excited!

The painting would be an owl on a branch in the moonlight the outcome looked promising. We started with painting the white circle then adding yellow, teal and blue until we had our sky complete… that was the easy part and wow did it look legit when we were done! Then came the hard part… the branches. My oldest daughter did this part perfectly so I thought oh that’s easy enough so I was paying attention doing mine not even noticing that Marlee (my 6 year old) had gone a bit too far and had made her branch look like a giant black blob in the middle of her canvas. Que the tears that she totally destroyed her painting… she was so distraught and my heart sank because she was so proud of her sky. Then the teacher, Connie, came over and told her in a positive voice that “we can fix this it will just take a little bit of time and work”. Still crying she was unable to see past her mistake that it could be fixed. People were starring at us at this point and I thought wow this is going to make her even more upset that others are noticing her mistake! As the black paint came off the canvas more and more the tears began to stop and soon enough her blob resembled a branch again. Marlee looked over and said “I didn’t realize that mistakes could be fixed like that now I know not to get upset if I make a mistake I can just do what I can to help fix it”.

Point being that we all make mistakes and sometimes don’t do things the way we should have but if in the end we have that original result achieved then does  it really matter how we got there? There is a lot of bullying and hurtful things being said about new photographers who shoot weddings for free or cheap and don’t provide professional material… do you know how many of us did that when we began? Some couples simply cannot afford a wedding photographer which is where these new ones come in handy… they are willing to do these weddings free or very cheap. We can educate wedding couples till we are blue in the face about this but it won’t do anything because we all start somewhere. Did I make the mistake of shooting my first few weddings free on a canon rebel with no back up camera on auto mode with a pop up flash? You bet I did! Did I still end up thriving and growing despite not being mentored or going to expensive workshops first? Yes I sure did! Point is it isn’t up to you to notice and judge someone’s mistakes without providing a helping hand… if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say it at all kinda thing. If you are going to sit and judge how someone is only charging $150 for 12 hours wedding coverage maybe just think of how you started or your friends started and think to yourself do I have any positive advice to help them go in the right direction or how productive is my judgement? Why are you wasting your energy and time judging someone when you could be putting that energy into moving yourself forward?