This is the very first 1:1 Friday Newsletter I ever sent to my subscribers. Every other Friday we have a one on one conversation on my two favorite topics: motherhood and photography. Read on to learn more about me and what this is all about.
Who is Camilla Myrrha?
Hey there! I am a photographer, a mom of 3, and, according to my own mom: a butterfly (mostly because I get distracted in my own little world).
My world is pretty ordinary but it’s also special. I get a chance to live an intentional life as a mother, wife, and creative…and I spend most of my time troubleshooting it.
I decided to reach out to you to see if you’d be interested in following in this journey of motherhood and creativity. So every Friday (or every other Friday—which should it be?) I will send out my 1:1 (reads “one on one”) Friday email.
The idea is pretty simple:
One thought on motherhood
(resources, discoveries, funny stories I call “pearls” and overall learnings)
+
One thing on photography
(my best photo tips, resources, and the occasional studio promo, model call, etc)
Does this sound interesting to you? No? Feel free to unsubscribe. If yes, read on for my very first issue, and thank you for sticking around.
:1 Thought on Motherhood
ROOTS
I am currently in Alegrete, RS, Brazil. It’s a little farm town in southern Brazil, though locals say it’s the center of the world. My grandpa Raul helped establish many things here over the last 60 years, so tomorrow he will be honored in a special ceremony. An auditorium will be named after him!
Though he never saw this coming (he is 88 years old, in and out of hospitals for his health), nobody is surprised. I felt this would be the perfect time to take my kids to see where their own little roots come from.
So I travelled 3 days with my 3 children, ages 10, 7 and 5, to get here. SLC-MIA-GRU-POA, by plane, all followed by a 7 hour car drive through the pampas gaúchos.
We stopped at a gas station on another town by the road, and the cashier saw my aunt who was driving us and said: “Your dad was here yesterday.”
I mean, when the cashier of the gas station where you do your pit stop and get your popsicle knows your grandpa, you have to take a picture with him.
He even gave me a business card with his name handwritten on the back and today’s date.
That’s when this truth hit me:
When you have roots in a place, you reach other roots and together you’re stronger. You’re interdependent. You’re a community.
My grandpa Vô Raul is being honored because 45 years ago he became the newly appointed president of an agriculture corporation, a bankrupt one. His friend had also been appointed the president of another agriculture corporation, also facing bankruptcy.
While they could have seen each other as competitors, they decided to unite and become one. So instead of ruining each other, they came together. My grandpa is great at this.
Growing up in Brazil, I used to spend an entire week here every school break to play with cousins.
When I lived in São Paulo, my parents would drive our 12-seater burgundy Mitsubishi van and the 5 of us kids through a 3-day drive just to get here.
Today, as I arrived here for the FIRST time since Christmas of ‘08, and now with 3 children of my own, I couldn’t believe it…
Everything smelled the same, everything was in the same spot, even the bedsheets were the same faded ones with Kim Casali illustrations from the 70’s that my mom used when she was growing up.
But then again, my grandparents weren’t originally from here.
They were uprooted to Alegrete as newlyweds.
Built and planted everything in the bare land they got along with the hope to make something out of it for their growing family.
No electricity, no shade…and now I am pleased to say even wifi resides surrounded by lush greenery with all kinds of oranges, flowers and to my daughter’s delight: persimmons!
Sometimes you’ve got to get transplanted somewhere else in order to grow stronger roots.
Much like a transplant, as a Brazilian mom raising my family in Provo, Utah, I need to be intentional with every parenting attempt to nurture my children. While I fail miserably more often than not, I have learned many things along the way.
I’m curious, do you also have a story of feeling uprooted? I sort of think that every family has their own version of this.
:1 Photography Tip
FIND YOUR LIGHT
As you know, the word “photo” means “light”. So it goes without saying but I will say it anyways: when taking a photo, you gotta find your light and use it to your advantage.
Not all light is created equal. An overhead fluorescent light will cast green shadows and make your eyes dark, and a window light coming from the front (behind the camera) will create a beautiful, soft light across the subject’s face.
Here’s an example from my daughter’s baptism day a couple of years ago.
Because it was a snowy winter morning, I didn’t want to freeze everyone outside for a photo of her and Diogo. At first I had them just stand in the hallway wherever and I was not happy with the result:
The overhead light created a dark shadow on their faces (not good!).
Then I looked around for something else that could work as a better light source. The solution? The glass doors!
MUCH BETTER! To improve the first photo, I asked them to face the glass doors (behind me) and the light coming through them illuminated their faces beautifully and evenly.
We ended up even doing our group photos with our guests this way!
Next time you find yourself with less than ideal lighting for an important photo, look around, find your light and have your subjects FACE THE LIGHT (put the light behind you!)