How My Journey Began
I'm very artistic and enjoy drawing, painting, and graphic design. You could say that two of the talents God has given me is my artistic eye and learning computers/electronics. I've always owned pocket cameras and enjoy taking pictures, but I've never owned a "big" camera. My wife encouraged me one night to buy a DSLR to take pictures of our family and bet me that I would be really good at it. Soon after that conversation I found a package deal on eBay for a great price. It was a Canon Rebel T5i and it came with three lenses, Canon EFS 18-135mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS STM, Canon EF 75-300mm 1:4-5.6 III, and Canon EF 50mm 1:1.8 STM. I walked in the door after work one day to find my package already open on the kitchen table. I sifted through the items, picked up my camera and asked my wife, "I wonder how you put the lens on?" Though I'd always loved photography and had taken tons of pictures before this day with pocket cameras, I was a newbie. I figured out how to attach my new 50mm lens by aligning the two red dots, walked outside, flipped the power switch to auto, and told my daughter to smile. *CLICK* My first photo.

I looked at the preview on the back of the camera, and was in awe. "What a great lens!" I whispered to myself. I started snapping pictures of a few more things and went inside. "Now what?" I thought. The start to an amazing journey began. I got to work on learning. I watched hours and hours of videos on aperture, exposure, and shutter speed. I watched hours of videos on lighting, on shooting RAW vs JPEG, on how to use Lightroom and Photoshop. I downloaded apps, read manuals, studied poses, shooting practices and techniques. Then it came. My first photo shoot. It was of my sister, and free of course, but the nervousness was very prevalent. We got to the site and I didn't know what to do. I was like a deer in headlights. Clueless. After a few horrible pictures, I took a deep breath, relaxed, refocused, and regrouped. "You got this" I thought. I started remembering everything I had learned and took it slow. After nailing a few amazing pictures, I started to find my groove.




After the shoot I went home a realized that I had a ton of good pictures, more than I was expecting. It was at this time that I really learned Lightroom. I had bought some really great presets, but I still worked tirelessly on each photo after the preset was applied. I wanted each to look perfect. After I published my shoot to my site I got some really great feeback, but I knew I still needed to up my game. I needed more lenses and a better camera. So I started to do more research and homework on the best camera and lenses for my style. With my first photo shoot I realized that I'm a prime lens photographer. I really enjoy moving around with my feet to make the shots more creative and "artzy". Not to mention, with primes you get a higher level of sharpness that's just lacking with zoom lenses. Since my first shoot I've bought a total of 5 more lenses and another camera. I now own a Canon 7d Mark II body, and in lenses I've added a Canon EFS 24mm 1:2.8 STM, Canon EF 35mm 1:1.4 L USM, Canon EF 85mm 1:1.8 USM, Canon EF 135mm 1:2 L USM, and Canon EFS 10-18mm 1:4.5-5.6 IS STM. My next purchase will be a Canon 6D and I will use both the 6D and 7D Mark II together for weddings. I've now shot over a dozen sessions and continue to improve my style and technique. I have family portraits, bridals, engagements, and weddings booked in the near future and I'm super excited to be on the voyage that's before me. I'm absolutely in love with photography and hope to continue this path that I'm on to the point where I do it full time. I love capturing such special moments and the reactions I get from my customers make my job so rewarding. So that's it. That's how I started my journey. I now only hope that one day you will be a part of that journey by being a customer of mine and allowing me to freeze your special moments in time!





