about vulnerability

I almost deleted this entire set of pictures as soon as I uploaded them. 

They were all taken in two short minutes (literally the timestamps go from 12:46pm to 12:48pm), when my daughter was reveling in the glory of her new "big girl bed" and my husband had a second to play with her. I grabbed my camera and clicked away, trying to capture these darling moments when they happened.

And in my rush, I didn't double check my settings, so my shutter speed was too slow, resulting in lots and lots of blur. As in, almost every picture was blurry, or just not as sharp as my pictures normally are.

My first instinct was to throw out the batch - yes, they were capturing authentic moments that were precious to me, but I felt I failed as a photographer, so what was the point in keeping them?

But I made myself keep them. And even more, I'm making myself post them (still feeling majorly vulnerable about this!). It's taken me a while, but I'm really trying so hard to let go of the insane ideal of perfection. Because done is better than perfect, and in this case, documented forever is better than without an ounce of blur.

A favorite quote from Brene Brown (my vulnerability guru - listen to this TED talk to start) is, "Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it's the thing that's really preventing us from flight." 

So here you go. Blurry, wonderful, highly imperfect pictures taken by an imperfect, wonderful, highly flawed photographer. I love the motion and the movement and the personality captured.

Anyone else trying to live the mantra that done is better than perfect?

I'd love to hear something you're trying to let yourself be more vulnerable about.

And please be kind about these blurry pictures!

Although I'm going to stand by them even if you're not kind, because I'm trying.