Welcome to My Blog!

It’s here! My very first blog post! Let me start by saying, I never thought that I would ever blog. Yet, here I am. I am a pretty private person. I would only post pictures so my kids, in a major photo dump- no caption, leaving out all the details of the past months. Never did I think I would start a blog, or post more times in the past few months than I ever have in the past 10 years of my social media life combined. Photography has taken me so far out of my comfort zone in just a matter of months.

I’m a public school teacher who teaches second grade. I personally think second grade is the best grade- I’m sure others will disagree. You’re probably wondering why I am telling you about my occupation, I promise it has everything to do with the start of this photography journey.

I started this journey in March of 2020. Yup. If you did the math that was 10 months ago. I had no aspirations to ever get into photography. At 25 years old, my current life plans were to teach 180 days of out of the year and enjoy any moments I could with my two boys. COVID decided to switch the vision around, BIG TIME.

My birthday was at the start of the pandemic. School closed for two weeks on March 13th, my birthday was the 18th. I had been telling my husband for weeks that I wanted a camera to take pictures of the boys. The governor had just closed school for two weeks and they said COVID was going to only last two weeks if we slowed the curve. I rationalized that it was the perfect time to get a new camera. I could learn to take pictures of my kids in two weeks, no problem. Again, no desire to ever take pictures of other people- just my slightly naughty, uncooperative kids. Well, my husband pulled through and surprised me with my very own camera, a Nikon D3500. Here I am with this nice camera, thinking my pictures would be nice just because the camera was nice. Boy was I wrong.

My pictures were not turning out as “stunning” and ‘breathtaking’ as I envisioned. My kids rarely smiled (shocker), they ran away (shocker- my husband started doing this too), and I had PLENTY of blurry pictures.

One week into what we thought was two weeks off, one of my brave coworkers asked me to take pictures of their family. She said that they had never done pictures before and I just got a new camera, it sounded like a recipe for success right? WRONG.

Take a peek at my very first shoot. She LOVED them. I didn’t hate them, but knew they needed to be better. That they could be MUCH better.

I did every photography "no no" in this session. We shot this at around 2pm- MAJOR NO NO. It was way to bright outside. There was NO shade in sight. There were major shadows on faces. Skins tones? What are those.

I practiced on SO many people. With results that VARIED. Look at some of my early photos. I advise to look with caution- they’re definitely not by no means best work, but they helped bring me to where I am today.

Finally, I started to invest in education. It seemed like the perfect thing to do. Little did I know that investment would bring me to where I am today. I cannot stress how important education is- that may be my inner school teacher...but it seriously has allowed me to take photos that I am proud of. Look at the difference!

I still have a ways to go, but the growth I have made within MONTHS has made me more proud of myself than I have ever been.

For the past three and a half years, I have found joy in teaching children and watching them grow. Let me tell you, there is nothing more rewarding than watching a 7 year FINALLY get addition/subtraction with regrouping. They feel so proud of themselves and want to solve all the problems in the world.

I have spent years investing in others, that I never knew how rewarding it was to invest in yourself. To watch yourself grow in ways that you never thought is an indescribable feeling. If I see this much progress in a matter of months, I can't imagine where I will be by this time next year. I cannot wait to see where this journey takes me. I challenge you to invest in yourself! I promise it'll be worth it.

Hope to see you on the other side of my camera!

Alexa