How my Passion for Photography was Born!

I knew my wedding day was going to be the best day of my life, but I never in a million years would have guessed my wedding day would have inspired my passion for photography. Here’s the story on how an unfortunate event impacted my future forever.

Five years ago, today, was one of the happiest days of my life (next to my kids being born). Ben and I got married in the beautiful Lake Arrowhead, in front of all our friends and family. It was a gorgeous March morning! The air was crisp. The sun would peak through the haze of clouds ever so often. The view over the lake was absolutely stunning.

We had hired a friend’s boyfriend to photograph our wedding. He was trying to jump start his photography business. We felt confident hiring him after our pre-wedding meeting and viewing his portfolio. We put all our trust in him to capture our very special day. He did an amazing job on our engagement photos. He was charismatic, a little goofy, and made us feel comfortable. We loved how the gallery turned out. So we were very excited for him to capture our wedding day.

Fast forward to March 19, 2016. He captured the day from start to finish, every element, every emotion, from all the small details to the crazy celebrations. The next day, he surprised us with our sneak peak and the photos were amazing! We were SO EXCITED to get our finished gallery…

Well, a few days later I get a text. He informed me had something personal come up and he wasn’t going to be able to turn over the edited gallery to us. He felt horrible about it. My heart sank. I asked him about giving us the RAW images so we at least had them for our memories. He agreed and gave me ALL , over 8,000 photos! In RAW format. (For those of you who don’t know what RAW images are… photographers shoot in RAW format, which collects all the images data and can be later be post produced into your high resolution print ready images).

I didn’t understand at the time what a gold mine I had just acquired. Keep in mind providing a client with the RAW images is just something professional photographer DOES NOT do. This would be like a baker giving you your wedding cake without the decorations and frosting on it… you just don’t do that. At this time I didn’t understand this though…knowing little to NOTHING about photography.

I was flustered. Not knowing what to do with these natural, RAW, unedited images. They were dark, some over exposed, some out of focus, the images were all over the place. Now, I know this is typical for images straight out of the camera, but at the time I was panicking.

The day after I got all the photos, I went to work. I told my co-worker about what had happened. Having some photography experience, he gave me hope. He advised I download Lightroom, an editing software. So I did just that. Being a creative person who loves to try new things, I jumped right in. Started watching YouTube videos, played around with all the functions and got straight to editing.

I still wasn’t super happy with how they were looking, so I scratched the first edit and started over … three, four, FIVE more times! Still to this day I don’t love my wedding photos and have never printed a single one of them. I actually spent a bunch of time making a photo album and could never pull the trigger on ordering it.

Thank god had a positive mindset through this whole experience. Most would not have been so patient. Instead of sulking and being angry, I took this as an opportunity to learn something new. Now I wanted my own camera. Learning how to use a DSLR camera had it’s own challenges. I practiced on my new baby girl, constantly researching and wanting to learn more. I practiced on my family and friends. Invested in courses. I put myself way out of my comfort zone, allowed myself to be vulnerable. Messed up, tried again, and researched some more. I slowly started charging and booking clients.

Today, I am running my own Professional Photography business where people are reaching out to ME. Requesting ME to capture their special moments. LIKE WHAT! Seriously, still blows my mind. It is so humbling to have someone love and cherish the images I get to capture for them. I never in a million years would have imagined I would be where I am today.

I honestly have my husband to thank for so much of this journey. If it weren’t for him I would probably still be just taking pictures of my kids. He surprised me with my very first DSLR camera AND my new, mirrorless Nikon Z7 DSLR camera! He has pushed me to jump out of my comfort zone. Supported me while I spent hours learning, practicing,  and going on countless photoshoots. Keep in mind I also work full time! He has been my rock through it all.

So this brings me to today… I wanted to post a couple of my wedding photos to celebrate our wedding anniversary, so I picked a few of my favorites. I of course re-edited them for the 10th time before posting them, but I finally LOVE THEM! I plan to go back through all my wedding photos and start from scratch. I truly believe this time I am going to love them, make my wedding album, and get some framed to hang in our newly renovated home.

Here are some before and after photos for you. The photo to the LEFT are my first round of edits (maybe the 4th or 5th attempts) and the photo to the RIGHT are edits from this morning.