Baby Steps

So today I'm editing, which is of course a never ending job. And while I'll be the first to tell you I love my job, but editing is not my favorite part. No amount of music, tv shows, or podcasts makes it as fun as shooting. Anyways, as I'm retouching the fresh face of another beautiful girl, I'm thinking about why I became a photographer.

My mother is a woman who loves her babies more than anything, and as you can imagine, the only artwork she deems worthy of gracing her walls... Portraits. Naturally, after seeing so many 20x30's. 30x30's, and so on all those years, I became obsessed with portraits. In high school, I was majorly into all my art classes, in which I drew almost exclusively portraits. This fascination with art led me straight into art school at Mizzou, which was perfect because I was then able to spend 20 hours a week in class drawing, painting, designing, and generally geeking out. My focus was solely on drawing and painting, until I had a need to add an extra course one summer. There was only one class available, and even though I had no experience, or camera, I took the plunge. Beginning Photography it was.

Basically, it all fell into place. Not in the sense that I had found my "people", because that isn't true at all. In fact, I really didn't fit in. I was this bubbly girl wanting to shoot seniors, babies, families, and weddings. No one else wanted to do that. It was actually a joke to some that anyone would want to shoot those things. So, I kept my head down, turned in work that in some way fit the bill (nothing I was passionate about) and on the evening and weekends I took every shoot that came my way. By the time I graduated, I had a decent list of clients and knew what direction I was going.

Fast forward a few years and here I am, full-time and loving it, although admitted slightly crazed at times. Riding the roller-coaster of self-employment has been quite the journey, but one I wouldn't trade. Here's to baby steps, sometimes the only way to get started.