My why. Why I am a photographer & how it all began... : Jackson Michigan Photographer : Mid Mich

Why I am a photographer? I guess you can say it started with a seed that was planted when my dad gifted me my first camera when I was a teenager. My skill and desire to use that first camera allowed me to develop my vision and eye for capturing portraits.

It continued throughout my life as I brought my camera to events and then evolved to photographing my own children once they were born. Over the years of capturing my own boy's portraits I was asked at one point to capture some images for a few of my friends. To be honest it wasn't until that moment that I even thought about making photography a career. Up until that point I had only captured my family. I decided

to take them up on their offer of allowing me to photograph them and I haven't looked back since! It felt so natural to me to be able to photograph my friends and that was something that I wasn't expecting. That is what you can say was the start to my photography career. That was six years ago. It started slowly as a hobby and has evolved into a career that I take very seriously today. As I reflect on how my business has evolved and where it began. I am thankful. I always see how God is in the mix of all things and how I was led into the career I have today. God is still molding me and shaping me. I continue to become better at my craft and that is something I am proud of. I always pray before any session and ask that God will allow me to see the person I am photographing with His eyes and to have the ability to see them they way He sees them. It is such a joy to be able to capture each and every client over the years and to have captured their beauty, their character and who they are. This has been a huge blessing! I am photographer because I have grown to have an infinite love for photography. I love how a photograph can capture the essence of who we are, how it documents our existence in this world and how when a photograph, a portrait, when it is held in a person's hands, how it holds power and adoration for oneself or for the one who loves the person in the photograph. In a world that has begun to downgrade printed art, printed photographs it is my sincere honor, love and ultimate goal to ensure to that I do my part to reverse that tide. A tide that will ensure that my clients exist in portraits so that their children and their children's children will have photographs to remember the person they were in this life, to create a legacy for that individual because a portrait is a powerful thing. I am photographer because no matter what most may think about photography today, being a photographer is an important role, it is vital that what we do as photographers to capture our clients also helps us to preserve our existence, our history.