PICTURES
So for some reason this post has been hard for me to write, maybe because of the vulnerability of it, or maybe because I haven’t talked about some of these situations on social media. I always get asked why photography and how did this all happen. Why photography? Well in general it is an incredible creative outlet for me,I love preserving memories and being apart of someones legacy, but more specifically I would answer this question differently for seniors versus weddings. For seniors I love what I do because I loved senior year so much. It is such a unique and fun time of life. I love making my seniors feel loved and beautiful. For couples and weddings, in the wise words of my friend Skylar “ I LOVE LOVE” but seriously, I am a hopeless romantic. I think love is an incredible gift from God and being apart of that in such a big way is inspiring. Weddings are special and getting to be the person to capture it is amazing. I once read a photographer’s blog post that was talking about how she doesn’t take pictures for the people in them, she takes them for their children and grandchildren and that changed the way I look at my job. Photography is important because it lets our future family connect with us where we are today.
When I think about how this happened, and how I got to where I am, I think back to middle school. My dad bought me a little green coolpix camera and I was in love. I remember rearranging my room to get the perfect picture of my friends for facebook and stealing my moms canon and posing my sister in a million ways. I also remember when instagram first came out, I had an account before all my friends did and the day I got it, I start arranging all these things in my room like my nail polish to take artsy pictures to post. When people ask me why photography I think of all these times that I knew I loved taking pictures, but I never thought of it as a talent I had or a job.
High school came and my little green coolpix got put on a shelf and I went to school, was involved in a million activities and I was going to go to college and be a neonatal nurse practitioner. When senior year came around I decided on Messiah and in August 2014 I moved onto campus as a nursing major. Then that November I lost my grammy and decided to change my major in the same weekend. My whole life was flipped upside down and I decided that I was going to do a semester with no major, I took general education classes and tried to figure it all out. I then decided to go with art education. I did a full year as an art ed major and I loved it. I felt fulfilled and happy, then the end of my sophomore, I started to feel uneasy about where I was, I didn’t want to be at Messiah and I couldn’t understand why, I loved my major, my professors and I had great friends. I have no way to explain it other then God, He had better plans.
In February of my sophomore year on of my best friends became an aunt. Her brother that lives in Florida had a baby. So Lyndsay, our friend Erika and I decided we wanted to drive down on our j-term break to meet the baby. While we were there they had asked one of us to grab a few pictures of them as a family and I took a few and was SO excited about it. That day brought taking pictures back into my life. After that, I knew I wanted to buy a DSLR, and even then I still didn’t think of it as a possible career. After leaving messiah I spent that summer at camp and I bought my first DSLR and starting taking pictures of my friends and family and realized how much I loved portrait work. I started following photographers on instagram and thats when I realized I could start my own business.
I’m a firm believer in everything happens for a reason, if my dad never bought me that camera, or if I didn’t go to Messiah or if our trip to Florida didn’t happen (it almost didn’t) then I wouldn’t be where I am. God truly makes all things work together for our good. I had the coolest moment this May that just past. On May 19th 2018 all my friends graduated from Messiah College with their undergrad degrees, and on that day I probably would have been a little sad because despite feeling like I’m exactly where I should be, leaving messiah was still hard for me. But I wasn’t sad at all because on that day exactly I had the opportunity to shoot my very first wedding. Something I had been dreaming of for a long time.
Now I don’t know exactly what is next, but I have a lot of big dreams. I want to build a 6 figure business, I want to shoot weddings full time, I want to add education to my business and I want to own a wedding venue. While all of these are exciting and something I’m always working towards, Im not sure if they will happen, but I am sure that God will work all things together for my good just like he has in this journey to find my passion. Im so excited for what is to come. If you made it to the end of this, thank you, I appreciate you & I hope you liked getting to know a little bit more about my story.
PICTURES
