Daniel, class of 2012

See this handsome guy? This is my son, Daniel. He has a unique spot in our family. As he has pointed out, he has been the youngest, oldest and middle child in his life. Sound confusing? It is!

• Before I met my husband, I had 3 children and Daniel was the youngest of those three.
• A few years after my husband and I married, we moved to TN, and his older sisters stayed behind in WI. By that time, we had two more little ones, so he was the oldest of that set of 3.
• When you look at all five of my children, he falls right in the middle (just a little on the older side of the middle when you add my two stepsons in the mix!)

 Daniel graduated from high school this May, and is now living out on his own. My nest is a little emptier... it really is true, that old expression: "The days are long, but the years are short."

Well, before I get too teary eyed, let me share with you the highlights of Daniel's senior pictures. This was a last minute shoot that we did while we were in Wisconsin for my daughter's wedding.

And now if you'll please excuse the cheesiness, I'm going to let Rod Stewart take it from here...

 

May the Good Lord be with you down every road you roam

And may sunshine and happiness surround you when you’re far from home.

And may you grow to be proud, dignified and true

And do unto others as you would have done to you

Be courageous and be brave

And in my heart, you’ll always stay

Forever young, forever young

May good fortune be with you, may your guiding light be strong

Build a stairway to heaven, whether prince or a vagabond

And may you never love in vain

And in my heart, you will remain

Forever young, forever young

And when you finally fly away
I'll be hoping that I served you well
For all the wisdom of a lifetime
No one can ever tell

But whatever road you choose
I'm right behind you, win or lose
Forever young, forever young

My handsome little boy, all grown up

AND - we're open!

I have been so busy with the "fun" part of photography (taking pictures) that I have been neglecting my poor little blog. I think this business is going to be a balancing act!

My original goal was to be open on July 1st, and I beat that by one month. I've been working on my portfolio and am just about finished with that process - just a few more shoots to go! And I am now officially taking non portfolio clients... things are taking off and I love, love, love it!

I've also learned some things along the way, and I am sure that will continue. One of the big things that I will be changing is that I am going to be dropping my main, flash web site and going to just a blog. Right now, I am going to keep it right here (even though I don't like the "blogspot" part of the address). I still don't feel like I know what I am doing with figuring out the more technical aspects of designing a blog, so when I get that sorted out, I'll switch to that. For now, this will work!

I've been plugging along with my facebook fan page. Are you a fan yet? I'd love it if you took "just one moment" and liked my page right here: JustOneMomentPhotography I really love interacting with people there.

On top of all of the photography stuff that has kept me busy all summer, things on the personal side are changing too - My husband and I have had one daughter get married, another one is about to have her first baby, one son graduated high school, and another will be starting kindergarten in the next few weeks. I've also stepped out of my comfort zone with some other areas of my personal life and have taken on a leadership position with a group that I belong to, and we are working hard on our annual fundraiser next week. This has probably been the absolute busiest summer of my life, but it has been great!

Busy, busy, busy

It's pretty crazy how much busy work there is to do to get ready for my "grand opening." I've been doing paperwork, figuring out bank accounts and how to accept credit cards, working on my website, sorting out marketing and pricing strategies. It's been a challenge to wrap my head around all of this, but I think it is going well and I'm enjoying working on something that is outside of my comfort zone.

As the final details are starting to sort themselves out, I've also been working on finalizing my portfolio and choosing people to model for me. I'm getting those dates worked out and I think I am still on track to make my official opening to "the public" to be on July 1st... well, technically I would have to start on the 2nd, because the 1st is my husband's birthday and I want to be able to celebrate with him!

Learning

Okay, I survived that first blog post. That's a good sign, right?

I've always liked taking pictures and going back and revisiting them later... especially from when I was young and skinny! Ah, the good old days...

When my son, who is now 4, was a baby, I discovered photo editing. I loved the idea of being able to take a photo that was okay and turning it into something that was better. I took that love and paired it with some tricks I knew from scrapbooking, and for a while, I ran a photo card and design business from my home. I've had lots of fun doing that, but I also started to notice that there was a big difference in the quality of the photos I worked with over the years. I wanted to learn why some photos were so much better than others, and I wanted to be able to take those kind of shots, rather than just wait for a few happy accidents. And so, a few years ago, when I wanted to learn more about photography, my husband bought me a DSLR camera. And... I kept it on auto! I tried a few times to switch to other modes and, since I had no idea what anything meant, the pictures did not turn out very well! So, I got frustrated and switched back to auto mode. My camera was basically a fancy, more expensive point and shoot.

I finally gritted my teeth and started trying to understand what things meant. I learned about scary sounding things like aperture and f/stops, shutter speed, iso and started to practice and practice until things started to click. I learned about things like posing and composition and lights and shadows and anything else I could find. And as I have practiced, I've noticed changes in how things are coming together. I'm not where I want to be... and I hope I never am. I hope that I am always seeing room for improvement and finding new things to learn. But, I'm also at the point where I can see a big difference in where I was, and that sure is a good feeling.

Dusting off dreams...

Busy, busy, busy... this is how I have been lately.

For so long, I have had the dream of doing photography. Being a photographer... something about that phrase puts such a thrill in my heart. It's always been a dream I have had at arm's length, too scared to really examine it. It was better to keep it in the corner, shiny and dust free, than it was to really take a close look at it. And so, that dream just sat there and did nothing.

Earlier this year, my husband and I were talking about our goals for the upcoming year. I took a deep breath and pulled my dream off the shelf, and said I would like to "do something with my photography." Actually, I kind of bumbled through that statement, because it was such a scary thing to say out loud and put it out there in the open.

And, so here I am... taking the baby steps I need to do to see my dream come to life. Where will it go? I don't know. It might fly high through the air, or it might crash and burn... probably it will be somewhere between those two extremes. But I'll never know if I keep it on the shelf, so it's time to see what I can do.

And, one of those baby steps means pushing the "publish post" button on this very first blog post... Here I go!