20
At 11 o’clock tonight, I will be 20 years old. I just want to say that it has been a great 20 years. I feel very loved and very blessed for all the experiences I have had and all the experiences yet to come. I am truly excited about my future. This coming summer in and of itself is highly anticipated and a source of joy for me right now. I’m excited that God is giving me the opportunity to photograph 34 sessions and 5 weddings so far. I pray that this summer will be about so much more than photography. I pray it will be about using these newly discovered gifts to truly bless each person I serve. I can not sleep at night because I’m so very excited to meet each and every one of my clients. I know 20 years isn’t much, but I believe that God has been working in me through those years– preparing me for what is to come. So hooray for the past, and hooray for the present, but a special hooray to the future, and all the wonderful experiences I’m about to share with some very special people.
Thistles
Laura is a complete sweetheart. At the beginning of her session, she gave me an amazing book of quotes titled, It’s Not Easy Being Green. As I sit here waiting for my images to upload, I began looking through it, and I stumbled upon a quote that I believe really sums up our session together. “As children, we all live in a world of imagination, or fantasy, and for some of us that world of make-believe continues into adulthood. Certainly I’ve lived my whole life through my imagination. But the world of imagination is there for all of us–a sense of play, of pretending, of wonder. It’s there with us as we live”– Jim Henson. For me, flash photography holds no sense of wonder. So rather than investing in a flash, I bought a battery pack, a painting light, and I dug some more Christmas lights out of my grandma’s basement. These are the instruments I choose for myself and my photography, because these are the instruments that spark my imagination. A burst of flash will never inspire me the way a lit-up jar in the middle of the beach does. So thank you, Laura, for allowing me to play around. It’s refreshing to interact with someone else who is willing to pretend and experiment.
