I’ve been thinking about doing this blog for a long time but I kept stopping at the point where I asked myself the question, “So what are you going to write?”   Well, I got tired of that question and decided to just start typing and see what came out.  We’ll see how it goes.

The title of this post is suitable to both the blog and my photography career.  So, what’s this blog about?   I’ll tell ya.  It’s my way of sharing my personality with my audience – whomever that audience turns out to be.  I expect I’ll reach some photo lovers, some brides, some moms and maybe even some photographers.  I welcome comments so that I can get to know you as well.

As for my photography career, I had to start somewhere so I chose to go pro when the thought of beginning another corporate job was too much for me to stomach.  But what got me into photography in the first place?

I’ve always LOVED images.  There is something about photographs that captivates me – I think it must be that the photo freezes a moment in time of someone, something as it existed just then, in just that light and preserves it forever – kind of like a memory in my head – and when I see beauty in an image, I can just swim in it.  I had this experience as a little kid looking at National Geographic with its amazing photographs of beautiful and strange far off places.  I have always been in awe at great photography – and I’ve always believed that I could do it too someday!

My brother, George (a lifelong photographer and inspiration to me) gave me my first 35mm camera in 1979 when I was 12 years old.  I fell in love with it and learned as much about photography as I could from the little booklets he gave me with the camera.  I went all over the place taking pictures of everything trying to grasp an understanding of strange new things like depth of field, shutter speed, apertures and film speeds.  Film, unfortunately, took a long time (and some money) to process and this obstacle kept me from really developing any skill until digital came along 20 years later.

Fast forward to 1999 when I bought my first digital camera.  That little screen on the back of my new camera changed everything!  Instant gratification!  This was for me!!

One night in 2001, I was in a club in San Francisco snapping away with my little point and shoot camera and a photographer (Brandon Oelling now with the X-Equals blog) who was there to shoot the DJ and the party told me that I had a great eye and that he would pay me to shoot other parties.  That just sounded too good to be true!  Get paid money to take pictures at a party??  “I’m in!!”

After shooting a bunch of events at nightclubs throughout San Francisco, I had met a few models who wanted photos for their portfolio and I was happy to help them out.  This was when I realized that I could create much more than snapshots and really opened my eyes to creating beautiful images of people.  A gorgeous model named Nadia was my first studio shoot and I somehow pulled it off and came away with images that are still among my favorites and you’ll see her in my portfolio.  Here is one of the images from that shoot.

Soon after, I shot another model and we loved the results.  Other models were coming to me wanting to shoot for their portfolios.  I was on a roll and nothing could stop me!!… or so I thought.  To make a long story short, I soon fell in love, got married, had a baby and took pictures of my beautiful child for five years.

Professional photography would have to wait until I was single again.  And so it did.