I'm Katie Oblinger
Katie Oblinger is a photographer... in between being a mom and working in her (not so) corporate day job. She tried her hand at being a food blogger but quickly realized she hated cooking and enjoyed photographing food even less. Photographing kids was an altogether different experience and one she fell for hard. When not photographing children for her black and white photo series she enjoys attempting to throw spirals in her front yard with her son, dreaming up their next warm, beach vacation, and plotting ways to move to Sullivan's Island, South Carolina.
Photo courtesy of Jacey Verhoef
“Childhood is the most beautiful of all of life’s seasons.” - Unknown
Bring me all of the Laura Ingalls braids, the braces, the crooked smiles, the missing teeth, the freckled noses, the big doe eyes, and all of the dirty faces and scraped up knees.
What began as a very selfish photo series documenting the ever changing baby face that belonged to my then 5 year old son, slowly morphed into something of a study in personalities. Something happened with each child who stepped in front of my camera. They had this uncanny ability to just be themselves. And The Face of Childhood was born.
Annie Leibovitz said, “Even in the most set up situation, I believe there is something real going on.”
Each child who sat there, aware of it or not, gave me a glimpse into who they were. Sometimes manifesting the only way they knew how. Hilarious faces to one extreme and thoughtfully quiet to the other. With a camera three feet in front of them, they only knew who they were at that very moment. And while some of these children were larger than life, others were simply sweet, shy souls.
The beauty is that in the snap of the shutter, the camera and I were able to capture that raw emotion in all its glory. What I discovered?
That raw emotion is always, always beautiful.