My Story of Why I Became a Photographer

The universe always knew I was going to be a photographer.

I have a photo from when I was about 3, holding my dad’s Nikon film camera. I have so many memories of always asking to use it, trying to steal it away when he wasn’t looking, so I could capture my world. I’ve had a camera in my hand most of my life and if I wasn’t taking pics, I’d be losing myself in my parent’s photo albums, soaking in all the memories and moments hidden in them, trying to hold onto the feeling it gave me to see what their life was like before I came along, or even from when I was a child.

Fast forward to high school… I studied photography in year 10, back when we were only shooting film. I literally would hang all week for my class, where I could loose myself in the darkroom, developing all the images I’d captured, letting my imagination lead me to all the places I longed to travel, the people I’d meet and capture. It honestly felt like a dream.

But alas, I went to a school where the arts weren’t considered a ‘career’. I have the most vivid memory of sitting with the careers counsellor who told me that photography would never be my job, that I couldn’t make a living from it and that I needed to pick ‘a real career path’ (insert my world crashing down around me).

At the time, I listened to that ill advice. I dropped photography for my final two years of school and focused on what I thought I SHOULD do. And you know what, I lost my soul.

The following years took me on a path that gave me a university degree and launched me into a corporate career. One I was good at but it didn’t feed my soul, it gave me no purpose.

But what it did give me, was knowledge, stamina, an unbelievable work ethic and it gave me my first understanding of what it meant to own your own business.

I honestly believe that everything happens for a reason. The paths that we go on are there to teach us, to guide us, to make us fail and force us to get up, brush ourselves off, learn and keep going.

And for that, I will actually be forever grateful for that counsellor. Because if they hadn’t given me that advice all those years ago, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

It took me having my children to reevaluate what I actually want to do. My husband (bless him) was the one who urged me to go back and study photography after I had my first child, because he could see that I wasn’t doing what I was meant to do in this life.

And so I did – I had my baby boy, worked part-time, studied 2 nights a week and brought my dream back to life. I started to make connections, invested in myself, found an amazing business coach and in time, landed my first client. And oh my goodness, did it feel GREAT! 

And so, that is my WHY…. I want to give that same feeling to my beautiful clients. The feeling of magic, love, that warmth in the heart that comes from doing what you love, serving who you’re meant to and following the path life has in store for you.

We all say ‘time goes so fast’ and the reality is, it does. But the power a photograph has to freeze that moment, to encapsulate the feeling that moment had, so that it can be re-lived over and over again, is why I do what I do.