3 reasons I took a break from blogging
I'M BACK! I had been in the habit of blogging about 3 times a week. Toward the end of last year, that began to taper down to about once a week, and now it has been about 7 months since my last post. I don't even feel bad about it. Why? I’m SO excited to share with you all, actually! There were three pretty big reasons I took a break from blogging, and it has been one of the most transitional, challenging and refreshing times of my entire life. I’ve been posting daily on Instagram (@amberlanghoff), but it’s about time I filled you in here…
Image by Courtney Potter of The Birth Collective.
1. NESTING
In October, I had announced that my husband Chad and I were expecting a baby! To be honest, I had no idea how pregnancy would really affect my day-to-day activities. I had an incredibly smooth, easy pregnancy—praise the Lord!—but I wanted to make sure that my stress level remained as low as possible. Since we found ourselves buying our first house and renovating it and moving in during that same timeframe, any “extra” activities were shifted to the back burner. For the sake of my little growing baby (and my own sanity), I took the stress-free route in every aspect possible, allowing myself grace to press pause on a few things that were important to me so that I could reprioritize for a season. In retrospect, I’m so glad that I was intentional about valuing and guarding my physical and emotional health during the months leading up to the arrival of our precious, perfectly healthy baby boy. It gave me the time and energy I needed to help Chad transform our house into our [baby-ready] home. It also gave us both space to educate ourselves on all things pregnancy, labor, delivery and caring for a newborn.
2. MATERNITY LEAVE
On April 25th, a blue-eyed, 7-pound 8-ounce baby boy made Chad and I the happiest new parents. You could say (like the Who’s of Whoville regarding the Grinch) that our hearts grew three sizes that day! Meeting little Elias for the first time after his beautiful, natural birth is a moment I will NEVER forget nor will I take for granted. Caring for our newborn and raising him into the three and a half month old he is today became our top priority, no questions asked. Chad and I had worked as hard as we could before he was born so that when he arrived, we could soak in every waking moment with him—which is good since those seemed to be more frequent than the sleeping moments for a while. Haha! Learning to step into the incredible role of “mother” has been equally challenging and rewarding. Nurturing Elias daily is the crowning joy of my life so far and I have zero regrets about my laser-focus on him in his first three months.
3. BUSINESS RESET
Before Elias was born, we knew that adding a human to our world would inevitably change our routine. Instead of fearing that in regard for our business and work-from-home set-up, Chad and I tossed around several scenarios we thought might suit us. Toward the end of my maternity leave, we began to narrow in on a couple work schedule concepts and considered the ways we wanted to focus our business efforts and spend our time & energy moving forward. Documentary family photography has become the main focus of my photography business, and I now understand the value of it more than ever. Although I still love weddings and senior portraits (and will gladly photograph them if the opportunities present themselves), it is so clear to me now why God had been shifting my passion to documenting everyday family life. Over the last three and a half months I have experienced firsthand just how fleeting the day-to-day moments can be. When I look at Elias today and observe the speed he picks up on things, he’s a completely different kid than he was last week and certainly than he was three months ago… Heck, Chad and I are totally new people, too! The dynamic of our daily life has been in constant transition and I’ve done my best to capture that in images so we never forget a single phase. I love that my job is to do that same thing for other families! I have spent the last couple months really honing my skills as a documentary photographer for that very reason. I had the amazing opportunity to be mentored by Kirsten Lewis, a documentary family photographer who has been extremely influential in my business (and in the work of so many others!). She challenged me in my work as a photojournalist, taught me new things, kept me accountable with photo assignments, and critiqued my work on a weekly basis. I feel stronger, sharpened, refocused and more ready than ever to continue dynamically documenting moments of all kinds—especially those of families.
SO, all of that being said, BRING IT ON. I’m so pumped to be back at it—blogging, booking, photographing, and more. You’ll be hearing much more about some of the things I mentioned in this post including our house, our baby, and even some new ideas & opportunities we’ll be rolling out for our business, but in the meantime, virtual hugs to every person reading this post. I missed you!