Visual journalism isn’t a new concept. Photo journalism has been around almost as long as cameras have been. But after being a professional photographer for 12+ years, I’ve noticed a pretty large gap. People either don’t know how to use a professional level camera and document everything with cell phone snapshots, OR they do know how to use a nice camera and they only use it to do photo shoots and still document their everyday life with cell phone snapshots. Very few people use a nice camera to take photos of their own people doing ordinary things.
That’s where I was at. I would get my kids all dressed up and take them to a location to do a photo shoot, or I would take pictures of them doing normal things at home with my phone. When I used my phone, the images were terrible (apparently I would forget all camera, lighting, and posing basics.) And when it was a full on photo session, the images were obviously posed and never quite captured my kids cute personalities. There was no middle ground for a long time.
Even though I was a lot more proud of the “professional” images, I found that I enjoyed going back to the snapshots a lot more. They reminded me of what life was like at that moment in time, rather than just what my kids looked like.
For several years, I had done a photo challenge each January where I took a picture with my camera each day for the whole month. I found myself going back to those pictures often, because, like my cell phone snapshots, they were our real life. But unlike my cell phone photos, they were also beautiful to look at!
They were like reading a journal from that time period. And for someone with a terrible memory like me, I was thrilled to have a visual reminder of what was happening to us!
2011
2012
2013
2014
In 2016, I was in a creative rut. I was pregnant with my 4th, and had been so sick, so I had missed my annual January challenge. But near the end of my pregnancy, when I started to feel better, I decided to challenge myself to take a photo of my kids every single day of the summer until baby was born in August, with my professional camera.
Girl, it was crazy. Cheesy as it sounds, it was a life changing experience for me. For some reason, this time was different. Something clicked for me. I progressed as a photographer SO quickly. I fell in love with photography more than I ever had before. I was capturing images the accurately portrayed the little humans that I love the most!
That’s where this course comes in. I’ve had some incredibly personal and profound experiences that guided me, in no uncertain terms, to creating and perfecting this class. I was in a very comfortable position–business-wise–for a long time. But I felt so drawn to moving in this direction, and that was SO SCARY. Like, for real. I’ve sacrificed a lot of things that took me years to build (like referring photography clients to other people, focusing on my personal social media accounts, rather than growing the business ones, etc.) and if this fails I don’t have a backup plan.
But the truth of the matter is, this is where I want to be. This is the beginning of my greatest business aspirations. And this is me letting the universe know that I am going to succeed. Cause my little guys are my very cliche “why”, and if I can create a business that allows me to be with them as much as possible AND help other women find joy?? Hello! That’s right what I’m aiming for!
If you’re reading this and thinking you’d like to improve your own photography skills, my class could be the perfect fit for you! Whether you’re looking to learn how to create beautiful images of your babies, or grow your own photography business, I would be so very honored to help guide you through this process.
Photography is a very vulnerable thing, and it requires a lot of hard work. But I would love nothing more than to coach you to success.