{this is one of my very first blog posts when I started my business. What a long time ago that seems!}
I’m very new to professional photography. It’s strange to call myself a ‘pro’ and I use the term loosely. Very loosely. Like size 10 on a supermodel. I don’t know everything. In fact, I’d venture to say that in the great span of photographic knowledge, I know next to nothing. But I am a professional simply because I make money taking photos and it’s a dream come true.
I started my career at the age of 9 or so. I got a Kodak 110 Instamatic in my Christmas stocking. I’m a control freak (ask my husband). I’d never yet dreamed of such power that I could capture the world in my very own camera and no one could stop me. I spent all of my allowance on those little film cartridges and made many trips to the Kmart photo processing desk to spend birthday money getting them developed. Oh, I so wish I still had those photos. Mostly of close-up eye balls and my own feet.
When Ebay first came out, my dad went bravely where noone in my family had ever gone before. The family would huddle around his desk chair as we watched the clock countdown the seconds until a listing ended to see if he’d won the latest math textbook for my mom (the life of a homeschooling family is so exciting). So it wasn’t long before he began trolling yard sales in search for Ebay treasures (or perhaps it was Antiques Roadshow that propelled him?) He came home from one such endeavour with a camera. A REAL camera with lenses and everything! I think I bought it from him for $10. A true entrepreneur, he even sold things to his own kids. I think it was supposed to instil ‘value’ or some such nonsense. I found a padded bag to stick it in and it lived on my hip for many moons. When we went to D.C. for a political march, it was there. Summer camp? I was the only kid toting a collection of lenses instead of a Game Boy. When friends came over did we paint our nails? Well, yes…but then I took pictures of them.
I didn’t have a clue what I was doing and I didn’t even know that there was anything I should be endeavouring to learn. I was just taking pictures. In fact, one of my most kick-myself-hard moments in life was when I climbed a tree at George W. Bush’s inaugural parade to take pictures. I was snap-snap-snapping away and he stopped RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! After about 100 frames, I thought this was one massive roll of film! My heart sank as I opened the back to find no film.
After that camera, I spent many years without one at all. My mind was invaded with thoughts of boys and funding my POG habit (remember those?) When our first child was born, I set out to find a camera and ended up with a groovy little Casio Exilim. Even now, I still think that’s a wicked cool camera (even though it’s so delicate I went through two before realising that maybe I needed something rugged).
Then 2 years ago at Christmas time, something magical happened. A friend sent out an email saying that he had a Canon 350d for sale. My head was immediately rushed with memories of my first SLR and, at the speed of light, I shot back an email “my husband will buy me that for Christmas thankyouverymuch. I’ll give you the money on Sunday”. I wrote home to Steven (I was in America at the time) and told him he was buying me the Canon for Christmas (I’m a control freak, remember?) I was handed over the camera and I crossed-my-heart that I wouldn’t take it out of the closet under the stairs and totally forget about it until Christmas. I also crossed my fingers as I made that promise and snuck it out a couple times (sorry, Steve).
I spent 18 blissful months taking photos of every waking moment in our lives. Breakfast? I had that covered. Bath time? Check! Chicken pox? It’s well documented.
After my children developed an immunity to my momarazza ways (think paparazzi) I moved on to other kids. Then something happened. I took a quick little snapshot of a friend’s baby and emailed it to her. The next time I went to her house, it was on canvas on her wall! I was astonished that someone liked my photo enough to even keep it let alone put it on canvas. Then I happened to drop by her mother-in-law’s house and the same photo was framed. They’d given it to all the family for Christmas. What on earth was going on? Then it clicked: I could do this for a living. People LIKE my photos!
Strangely, the rest is a blur even though very recent. What I do remember is that I read. A LOT. And read and read and READ till my eyes were bloodshot. Tutorials, field guides, commentaries. And I looked at a lot of photography. The best way to find your niche is to first discover what you’re drawn to viewing. A landscape? Blah. A portrait? Rock my world.
By this point, I’d been a professional makeup artist for about 5 years. I worked on TV sets, photo shoots, beauty pageants, you name it. If mascara was necessary, I was there. But I always had one eye on the face, one on the photographers.
So I read and took lots and LOTS of photos of everything imaginable. And I started playing with photo editing in Google’s Picasa program (which is free and totally amazing). Now, as you could have guessed by now (unless you’d skipped to the end!) I’m the praying type. I didn’t know where to go next so as you do when you don’t know what else to do – I prayed. I just said “ok God I want to do this for real. So if you want me to be a photographer, you’re going to have to teach me. How? That’s your department. Amen.” I kid you not, the next day a photographer friend who had just packed up his studio in Norway and moved back to England called me and asked if I wanted him to teach me studio photography. Blow. Me. Down. I don’t remember ever having told him about my ambitions or really even talking about photography at all. Afterall, at the time, I was a makeup artist and only worked in the background. But HE (secretly a hero for having been a ‘real’ photographer) wanted to teach ME about studio photography!
As they say, the rest is history. He let me borrow his full frame camera (I’m not worthy!) and taught me about those ‘big flashing lights’ and I ran with it. That was only in April and here I am in Feb, writing for two photography tutorial storehouses, owning my own studio, booked up for weddings, making more money than my husband (well…if I didn’t spend it all on more ‘contraptions’). Hard work? Yes. Sheer luck? Maybe. Fulfilling in every way? Ab-so-lutely.
