Yes, I'm back!

And this time I'm planning to stay. For the last year or so I had removed my blog section, but I've decided I'd love to share insights from my new journey in photography!

For anyone who's followed me over the years, even back before this website even existed, you'll know that photography has never really been anything new to me. Though I didn't have my beautiful Nikon baby that I have now, I always used whatever I had on hand. In elementary school, that was my mom's silver film point and shoot. In seventh grade, it was a blue circular film camera I took to middle school dances, after my mom got sick of me using hers. After that, it was a little pink Sony that I could upload to an actual computer. I was always that kid uploading a hundred photos to Myspace and Facebook that I edited on LunaPic.com and thought looked really cool, despite the fact I cringe to think how annoying I must have looked.

As I entered college I continued to love the idea of photography on the side, though I was entirely too preoccupied with art school to act on it. My best friend back home had always shared an interest in photography with me, and she had gotten her own DSLR. I had never seen such a complex piece of equipment; I knew composition and alignment, and all the artistic features that made a great image, but I had no idea what any of these buttons did or what the terms meant. She experimented with it using me as a model, and also taught me things along the way that she had researched herself. She even let me borrow it when I was asked to photograph a friend's wedding. I was very terrified, and had no real idea of how to operate a DSLR the way it was meant to be operated, but I made it through nonetheless. It was after that, my mother decided that there was no way I would be able to borrow my friend's DSLR every time I needed to shoot something, and as well our school library only had two DSLRs that you could rent out, which resulted in me getting my first professional level camera, the Canon Rebel T5i.

Over the years at college, and after, it served me well. It wasn't often used so much for artistic photography as it was for practical uses, like photographing paintings and drawings for my portfolio at college. As I graduated and left to move to Stratford, it gathered dust for several years, still only being touched for art documentation. Finally, I started to remember again why I had wanted a DSLR in the first place; photography was always something that had brought me joy, yet here I was with a perfectly good camera that I wasn't utilizing. 

Fast forward to today; I slowly worked my way into photography again, fully going through my camera to actually learn and understand what everything did, while using my friends as models. Eventually, I became frustrated once I realized the type of photography I wanted to achieve wasn't fully possible with the camera I had, no matter what new lenses I got. By this point the body was many years outdated, and I realized to achieve the standard of photography I admired so dearly and wanted to offer to real customers, I was going to have to make a new investment. So here we are today, with my Nikon D850 and 85mm portrait lens. Investments in photography are painful, but I'm so happy I took the risk. This new DSLR is currently one of the top of the line for portrait cameras and is paying itself off, both financially and satisfactorily, and I'm excited to grab a few more lenses for more versatility. 

I am, of course, still taking pet portrait commissions, and I'll eternally have several illustration ideas stored up in my head at any given time. I will always be an artist first, but I'm thankful I finally decided to fully open another door for myself with photography; no longer just a hobby that gathers dust, but a living and breathing part of my career that I hope eventually, I'll be able to support myself with indefinitely. I will continue to be posting future blogs about some of the fun shoots I've done so far. Namely, surprise proposals!