I suppose it might look something like this…
How long have you been a photographer?
I’ve loved taking pictures since I was a kid. I used up rolls and rolls of film with my dinky camera my parents gave me for Christmas one year. I loved those disposable cameras, too – especially the underwater ones.
When I was about 10, my dad loaned me his super-duper, heavy-duty nice camera to take to a cousin’s wedding in Idaho. I hardly knew what to do with it besides press “that” button. I ended up losing the camera while on that trip, and I was absolutely mortified to have to tell my dad. I offered to buy him a new one, but he knew as well as I did that that would never happen.
When I went off to college in 2008, I went through a really hard time making friends and adjusting to being on my own. One day I got a flyer in the mail for a local photography class starting up. It was like my golden ticket – I knew this was how I was going to get out of my depression. The class required you to have your own DSLR, so I pulled together everything I had and made the largest purchase I’d ever made up to that point – and I’ve never looked back.
Since then, I’ve grown from photographing myself and my friends, to church members, to weddings, to strangers-made-friends, to births, newborns, funerals, and everything in between.
35mm 1.4
50mm 1.8G
70-300mm that I never use. I would love to replace it with the coveted 70-200mm one day.
Extra battery, chapstick, lens cloth, macro lens filter
Beat up and battered, though very much loved, Nikon D90. My first DSLR.
Joy. Uninhibited. Real. Relationship-driven. Emotional.
My favorite shots are ones that come from captured laughter or un-posed connections. This is why I love shooting births the most – I give no direction when I am at a birth. I simply capture the natural movement and love and happiness that comes from welcoming a new baby into your family.
Freezing time.
My first son is now 20 months old and when I look back at pictures of him as a fresh newborn I think to myself, “There is no way I could have remembered him looking like this if it wasn’t for this photo, right here.” You just forget. Time gets in the way and photos have a way of bringing a little piece of magic back.
Photographs are priceless to me – they are proof of life lived, love given, tears shed, connections made. They are proof that we are real, that we existed.
I also love the wedding work of Three Nails and Katelyn James; the underwater work of Mark Holladay; the film work of Jonathan Canlas; the art of Brooke Shaden.
Describe your ideal session.
An underwater maternity session. If we ever live on the islands again, I will definitely be getting into underwater photography.
I would also love to be a traveling photographer. It’s not really in the plans for me now, with little kids to be had and taken care of, but I think it’d be glorious to shoot destination weddings. I have a friend in Dubai – I’d love to stay with her and capture her life for a week.
For now, though, my favorite sessions are ones that are photo-journalistic in nature – births, life-style sessions, weddings, scenery.
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