How Far I’ve Come

A few weeks ago, I saw a couple of posts floating around in a couple of Facebook photographer groups. The post said to share one of your first pictures you took with the year and one of your more recent ones. I posted a side-by-side of my first wedding and a picture of my most recent one. I loved scrolling through the different photographer’s pictures they posted. Some were just incredible with how much they had improved. Others were still getting started and didn’t have much “growth room” because they only started this year or last year, but it was awesome to see them putting themselves out there to share their work.

Me on the other hand, I started my business in 2008; so I have a lot of picture history behind me! Some of my work is so old that I didn’t even save some of that stuff back then. Luckily, I still have access to my very first blog I created back in the day. So between my saved files and my blog, I went and downloaded some of my old pictures. Oh goodness guys… if you hired me in 2008 or 2009, THANK YOU for trusting me.

Being a self-taught photographer, I had a lot of learning to do about my style, editing, lighting, exposure, cameras, lenses, and so much more… and that only has to do with pictures themselves! I won’t even talk about learning Lightroom, Photoshop, InDesign, marketing, Facebook, Instagram, and so much more for my business that goes beyond taking pictures!

Without scaring away too many of my potential clients, I will share some of my older pictures paired up with some more recent stuff I have done. I hope you enjoy looking through my growth as much as I did. It’s amazing to see how far I’ve come in the past 8 years. I can only hope through continued education through seminars, workshops, and conferences, I can continue to hone in on my craft and only get better from here.

One of my earlier engagement sessions and one that I did this past spring. I’m just gonna call myself out here. Sepia tone?? REALLY? Was I trying to make it look like an old-timey photo? The picture itself isn’t bad, but an edit can really ruin a picture. See the haze I created on the outside of the picture as well??

The pictures below are from my first engagement session ever. This was before I decided to start my business officially. I wanted to try out and see if photography was something I would like to do. Kristi and Cole had just gotten engaged, so I asked Kristi if they would let me try them out as my first test subjects for some free pics. I was so happy they trusted me to take their pictures! I used my Nikon D40 with the kit lens for this session. I shot on auto the whole time and didn’t know anything about shadows and lighting. Many of the pictures are over exposed while others have terrible shadows on their faces. I am pretty sure we did these in the middle of the day at like 1pm. Oh and I shot JPG. Couldn’t have even told you what RAW was or what it meant. And I definitely “edited” these pictures in iPhoto on my Macbook. And other thing… today, I would NEVER have a client walk on live tracks that are still used! So many things to learn back then.

These are pictures from the same location that I shot this week with Kristian and Lance! You saw most of these this week when I posted their session. Such a different set of pictures and different feel! I have more knowledge, better equipment, and a legit editing software. What a difference it makes!

Same spot, same location. Different lighting, different equipment. Totally different outcome. Look… you can even see the shadow of my HEAD on them in the first set! REALLY??

This wedding below was my very first wedding I shot. This was five months after Kristi and Cole’s engagement session. I had purchased a Nikon D200 in between the engagement session and the wedding. It had a kit lens as well that only went down to 3.5f (at the time, I had no idea what 3.5f meant)! I didn’t know much about the camera and learned very quickly that there was no auto function on it, so I had to learn at least what the M, A, S, and P meant. I shot on P mode that wedding, because I remember reading that it was most like auto. I had an “external” flash that was nothing like what I needed. I really had no business shooting this wedding, but I thank Laura and Matt even to this day for trusting me to take their pictures. I still edited in my iPhoto, had no idea I needed a contract or even how to start one, and used A LOT of black vignette! I straight up gave them some blurry pictures!

Pictures below are from Tawny and Jacob’s wedding last weekend. You saw most of these on the blog last week, but putting them together in a collage and comparing them to my first wedding, you can definitely see a huge difference in how much I’ve improved. I know how to shoot in direct sun now in the middle of the day. (Their first look was at 3:30pm with no cloud coverage.) AND no more black vignette!

I am only posting pictures I took from the wedding. While Ben is an important part of my business now, and I couldn’t do it without him, I want to post only mine from the wedding so that you can see the growth of my pictures. I’m kinda cheating if I share awesome ones he took!

I wouldn’t recommend to all budding photographers to start out the way I did. I should have done more learning and classes before I jumped into doing my weddings, even second shot some weddings before I did one on my own; but I was a quick learner and provided decent pictures for my clients back then. I truly thank each and every one of them for their trust in me to capture their special days. I am also very thankful for the growth and learning that has occurred over the years in myself as a photographer and a business owner.

If you are a photographer, I challenge you to post a “How Far I’ve Come” blog post. If you do it, make sure you post your own blog post in the comments below so that I can see it! It was very humbling to see where I have come from; but it was tons of fun to go back and look at my old work! It will be fun to do it again eight more years down the road!