When I Grow Up...

I always had a problem with this question when I was young - "what do you want to be when you grow up?" I went through a phase - when I was addicted to the Babysitter's Club - that I wanted to write. I soon found out that I really wasn't that creative, and I struggled to find the answer to that question. I always knew I wanted to be a mom. Deep down inside of me, since I was just a kid, that's all I wanted. But that's not the answer people were looking for when they asked that question. They wanted to hear "a fireman" or "a doctor". I graduated high school, still not knowing. I went away to college, still not knowing. I took general ed classes part time, hoping that the answer would hit me. Many years later, still no degree to my name, mainly because I couldn't commit to one degree, I finally gave up and joined the professional working world.

Back during one of those semesters, I decided to take a few "fun" classes. Voice lessons and photography. I can carry a tune decently, but I'm no Kelly Clarkson. Plus, for the final, we had to sing at a recital and it scared me to death. I'm definitely not one for singing in public like that. The photography class was fun, but extremely frustrating. It was back before digital cameras were all the rage, and you'd take a roll of film, only to go into the darkroom, develop them, and find out they were all bad. Plus, I had so many creative people in that class - I felt like my picture of the trees and the bridge just didn't measure up. I'm kind of like that - if I don't get something really quickly, I tend to give up. I really need to change that about myself.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago. I was going through a pretty hard time. Since I met him, Josh had been encouraging me to find a hobby - something that would make me happy and excited. I never knew what that could be. I danced in high school, but I felt like I was too old for that now. I'm not a very musical person, as I described in the paragraph above. I like to scrapbook, and I really enjoy it, but I was looking for something that would burn deep inside of me. I can't remember exactly what it was that led me back to photography, but all of a sudden, I was hooked again. I discovered flickr, and would spend hours on there every day, being ispired. I bought a new camera, and started a photo-a-day project. Soon, flickr led me to a food blog - a world I didn't even know existed, and before I knew it, most of my pictures were of food. I decided to start a food blog, and I haven't looked back since. That re-discovery of photography really helped me through that hard time and was one of the main forces in pulling me out of it.

Fast forward to about 5 months ago. Little Abbi came into our lives. And suddenly, my photography focus had changed. I still enjoyed taking pictures of food, but these new photos had so much more purpose and reason behind them. There the new obsession started. I have to say, I look at more photography blogs now than I do food blogs. And I get excited looking at them. I want to be like them. I want to learn and to practice and to create these beautiful memories.

And I have to admit - even though I'm a bit embarrassed to admit, since I still have so much to learn - but I finally know what I want to be when I grow up. Finally. At the age of 31. And for once, I'm not going to get frustrated and give up since I'm not perfect, and I have so much to learn. But I want to photograph people. Babies, toddlers, families - (but I don't know if I'll ever be brave enough to want to do weddings, I'm not sure that's my thing) - I want to help families to save their memories.

I've taken one little Saturday class, and I've spent lots of time online studying and learning. Thank goodness for google, otherwise I would know nothing about photoshop!! But I know practice is going to be the only way to really learn.

A neighbor and friend of mine let me take pictures of her newborn a couple of weeks ago. It was a lot more difficult than I imagined it would be. We couldn't keep her asleep. In fact, we couldn't even get her to stay asleep long enough to get her diaper off to do some cute nudie pictures. But I was actually quite happy with the way some of them turned out. I have put them together into a little video below - please let me know what you think!

The main reason I write all of this here is that I need some help. I need practice. I need volunteers. So if you are in Utah County, or if you are going to be in Utah County, I'm offering up free pictures to anyone who will donate their time to let me practice on them. I'm not promising anything great, but I can't get any better without practice! And if anyone knows of any cool spots here to take pictures, I'd love to know!