My Journey, 46, and a Little White House

I get these 2 questions a lot… “How long have you been a photographer?  How’d you get into it?”

Exactly one year ago, I decided to follow a passion… my dream to become a photographer.

That sounds silly.  Technically I’ve been “becoming a photographer” for a long time now… many many years, actually.    For as long as I can remember, I was ‘that girl’ who brought her camera to just about everything & anything.  Even if it’s just a point & shoot.  I’ve been known to screech off a highway, 65 to 0 in a split second, to take a photo.  Having a camera in my car… at all times.  Our honeymoon in Hawaii… oh boy.  My husband wanted to soak in the beauty of our surroundings and I was screaming inside “Where is my camera!!?  I have to capture this!”   A trip to California… another oh boy.  Dropped my camera (accidentally of course!) on gravel while running to get a shot, and my lens separated from the camera body like a coconut had been cracked open.  I think I sucked all the air out of that state when I gasped at what just happened.  Side note: Let me tell you the power of duct tape, people!  After doctoring that puppy up with duct tape from the hotel, and saying a big prayer that it would still work & continued to shoot (not knowing b/c I broke my display as well)… I came home, uploaded the photos, and viola YES!   THERE. IS. A. GOD.

Christmas 2007, I received one of the most awesome gifts of all time – a Nikon D40x.  That lit a match in me.  (I had the chance to play around with my stepdad’s 35mm film SLR in my teens, which I really enjoyed, but wouldn’t say I was hooked.)  With my new camera, I got serious.  I read the manual & tried to figure out the different bells & whistles, and I practiced practiced practiced.  Took a look at my work, figured out what looked good (and what looked REALLY unbelievably wrong & terrible – ha), and practiced some more.  And then read my manual again.  Rinse & repeat.  Rinse & repeat.  Along the same time, I just became a mother to a rockin’ little boy, and I did what any new mom with a love for the camera does – I took a BA-ZILLION pics of him.  Poor guy didn’t have a chance.  🙂

Thanksgiving 2009, I made a big purchase… a Nikon D90.  It was like throwing that match onto a pile of wood doused in lighter fluid.  BONFIRE!!  I felt like I was ready to step it up a notch from the legwork I did with my D40x, and was ready for a bit more from my camera (I’ll spare you the boring details!).  And talk about rinse & repeat.  By this point, I had 2 little boys (aka 2 no-choice-in-the-matter subjects) to photograph & practice more on!   Lucky men!  😉  After taking the camera out of the box, the 1st thing I did was grab the manual.  That manual became my 3rd child, following me everywhere in the house.  If I had a moment to read it in the kitchen, it was there.  And yes – it definitely spent a lot of time in the bathroom, too.  I read it 1st page to last.  I took copious notes.  I fiddled & played.  I also became super-invested in online classes & tutorials, along with taking just about every single class my local camera shop offered.  I started hanging out at this camera shop regularly, playing around with equipment & asking questions.  They were AH-mazing to take the time to educate me & introduce me to new concepts and ideas. (More about this camera shop in my follow-up post!)

Along with photographing my little guys, I started doing little shoots with friends to portfolio build and test out my abilities to photograph people other than my own family (sooo important!).  And something just clicked inside of me, where I realized how much energy & effort I was putting into this and loving it even more, that I just wanted to go for it.  I started investing in pro-level equipment, and applied for my LLC business license in November 2010, and officially launched Heather Photography in January 2011.  Almost to the date, exactly one year ago.

And what an INCREDIBLE year it has been!!  FORTY SIX.  I photographed 46 sessions in the year 2011.  Wow.  I am BLOWN AWAY by the amazing people I’ve met along this journey, and humbled to be chosen to photograph them & their loved ones.  Truly, truly humbled.  What an honor to capture moments of love, happiness, family, silliness… you name it… because that moment will pass, but the photograph of that moment will forever exist, making time stand still in the form of a small piece of paper or image on a screen.

That’s what really gets me about photography.  Priceless, can’t-recreate-them-again moments captured.

I’ll leave with this image.  Remember me mentioning swerving off the highway for a picture… 65 to zero?   Here’s an example.  I was driving thru central Virginia (sometime in early 2000’s), heading back home from a fun weekend with a friend.  The clouds were so dramatic, the sky was a beautiful stormy blue, and this little farm house on my right appeared out of no where.   I put on my flashers, jerked the car onto the shoulder, threw it in reverse, grabbed my camera, and ran across the highway to capture this.  With my little point & shoot, 2 megapixel camera…

I did almost nothing to this photo, only bumping the contrast slightly.  What you see is what I saw.  A few months later I was driving that same stretch of highway, this time looking out for the same red fields & white house.  Nothing.  It’s gone now.

I can’t tell you how happy I am that I stopped that day.

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