Since my first post, one of the recurring themes is the urge I feel to learn how to take better pictures. Pictures that are not only pleasing to watch but that have the power to communicate something, to make other people feel what was happening or even imagine a possible scenario.

Meet The Cohens was born to show our families what we do in our every day life, what Matteo is going through, which new milestones he reached and so on… This is why I want my pictures not only to show what he is doing but to let them “experience” his growth.

So many wonderful blogs inspired me through these 2 years. First there was La Tartine Gourmande, (if you close your eyes you can feel that small feather on your cheek, isn’t it?), then I “met” SouleMama (when I dream of a perfect home, I dream of Amanda’s). Jared Flood is another one that really opened my eyes about knitting and about photography. One thing that I love about all these blogs is that they are all self-taught photographers. If you go back into their archives and look at the first entries you can see the improvement made through the years and you can really feel the hope .-)

I don’t remember how I discovered Toni’s first blog “Simple Sparrow” but as soon as I found it I fell in love with her pictures. The old blog doesn’t exist anymore, but the pictures that filled its pages can still be seen on her flickr account. In August she moved to Germany with her family, and started a new blog, telling the story of their new life in Europe, with not so many words but with a lot of beautiful pictures. In January she created a new site: one hundred photos. In her own words:

One hundred Photos was created as a personal challenge to myself. A focus that would hopefully hone my skills and spark inspiration, but also teach me to dig deeper when I feel uninspired. To look harder when I don’t see anything around me. In the end I will have a collection of 100 pictures that I can look back on to see how I’ve grown as a photographer–not just with my camera, but with my eyes and heart too.

So… here is my first entry to the One Hundred Photos collective inspirational challenge, you can start too, drop her a line and join the flickr group.

(Oh and by the way, next time I will only post the picture, but this time I really wanted to explain it all!)