How I started

I've only recently started calling myself a "photographer." That word seemed too official for the longest time but that's what I've always been at heart - a photographer.

I fell in love with cameras way back when I was a kid - I had a barbie camera that was life! Snapshots of family and weird things you see as a kid were my entire repertoire.

Then into my teenage, angsty years, I took a lot of landscapes and edited everything in black and white. I captured the emotions I was feeling through my lens.

A few years later, I got my first "big girl" camera and fell into a deeper love with the art. Still mostly landscapes and nature, photography became my favorite hobby. I took some portraits here and there but nothing too serious to really learn what I was doing.

Fast forward to being married and expecting my first child (only 3 years ago). I wanted to try my hand at taking my own maternity portraits. I was and still am hugely self conscious in almost every aspect of my life - especially the way I look. The LAST thing I wanted to do when I was 8 months pregnant and the size of a whale was get in front of someone with a camera. To ease my concerns I decided to enlist my hubby and my mom to snap the pictures I dreamed up. It went as well as I could have hoped (being the subject of the photos, I was much harsher than most). But I wanted to be the one behind the camera.

Then I had my baby girl. And my life changed (in more ways than I could have imagined). For the purpose of this post I'll stick to how she changed me as a photographer. I knew I had some talent and an eye so to save money I decided that I would study up and take her newborn photos.

That was it. I was hooked. I wanted nothing more than to pursue portrait photography. As time went by, I photographed my little muse every chance I could get. It amazed me that I could capture her spirit with just one photo. I had to learn how to do that for everyone. My photos of my baby (now babies) are my most prized possessions. They tell the story of their lives. I can relive them growing up through the photographs I took. It certainly helps that I trained myself to take amazing pictures so it's like their little lives are art.

Through seeing my photos of my babies, friends and family started asking me to photograph their little ones or special events or whatever they had in mind. Now I'm lucky enough to branch out and help more people preserve their memories. I am so excited to see where this journey will take me. The love I have for photography grows daily and I am so grateful to be able to share it.