Part 1: Where It All Began
I recently realized that I have never told anyone my actual story on how I got into art and photography. You know, where it all began.
There’s always that short summarized story I will spit out as soon as someone asks how I got into photography. It starts out with, well I used to borrow my mom’s camera all the time throughout high school and college. And that’s where my love for photography began!
Well, that is true, but it’s not the whole truth. My journey with photography began a long time before high school.
You see, my sisters and I grew up in a little town in Idaho. It’s called Chubbuck, right outside of Pocatello. And even though some of the only things we did together were go to church, school and have “concerts” in the basement, we almost always had a disposable camera in hand.
There are collections of pictures of us playing dress up, having those “concerts” and hanging out with each other. Yes, I am including some of them below.
They are gems.
My parents gave us the ability to capture life through our own eyes, not just theirs. So, yes I do believe this sparked a bright light in my soul. I had so much appreciation for photography before I even knew what a real camera was.
Along with disposable cameras we also had professional photos taken of the family all the time. You think I am exaggerating, but I mean we have pictures from every major holiday, even Halloween.
Why Halloween, you ask? I’m not entirely sure. My mom thought it would be an amazing idea to drag us to a studio in full Halloween costumes, pose us and make us try to smile for 30 minutes.
Am I thankful for those photos now? Absolutely.
So my love grew even greater for photography and also with art in general.
One night on our way back from our Saturday tradition of going out to pizza with the neighbors, I picked up a pencil and paper and started drawing.
It was a small drawing. Just of a tree frog, which I love! But I remember thinking, “Hey I don’t think this looks so bad”.
I had a lot to compare it to. My oldest sister, Rachel, is a phenomenal artist. I have some of her work hanging around still and it won’t ever come down. So I took after her and kept drawing anything I could.
I was obsessed.
I planned on going to Junior High in Idaho, taking some art classes and learning more from my sister, who had just left for college. But then one night everything changed.
I’m known to be the biggest eavesdropper in the family. I hear everything and relay it back to my sisters. So it was no surprise that one night as I was listening through my parent’s door, I heard that we were moving.
WHAT?!
I couldn’t believe it! This would foil all of my plans to follow in my sister’s footsteps as she took art classes through college. She would be staying in Idaho and I would be moving to the South.
In actuality, it didn’t foil my plans. It just caused me to walk down my own path instead of following my sister’s. Yes, most of the time I thought I was walking the right way. But I would discover as I kept walking that it wasn’t the path for me.
So friends, next week I will be talking about our big move, the struggles we faced and my journey to find my passion in life. For now, enjoy these amazing pictures I found.
I set up this “studio” in the basement to take pictures at.
A few of our looks from our concerts!
I was literally always taking pictures of family, friends and anything else I could take a picture of.
My sisters also liked to take the best pictures of me. Joke!!
Every special moment in life was captured for us.
And this is where the actual photo studio pictures come into play….
Three blind mice!
I somehow managed to get a selfie in with a disposable camera!
Anywhere from vacations to family barbecues, I ALWAYS had a camera on me. And I am so thankful for that today!!
Want to hear more about me?! I know, after this blog post you are probably fed up with listening to me drag on and on about “where it all began”. But if you are for some reason still interested, check out 10 things you may not know about me!
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