I officially began my photography journey in 2013, but my love of photography started well before that. As a kid, I loved having disposable cameras and even had one of the super 80's Le Clic cameras. I loved having it around my neck or on my shoulder. I thought that I had the COOLEST camera in the world.

My dad had an actual Nikon, which I occasionally got to shoot with, and I was always so amazed at the crispness of the images taken with it. Taking pictures was just a fun thing to do.  It wasn't my passion then, but I did enjoy it. 

I pursued my other passion for helping people and worked in the juvenile justice system in varying roles for over a decade before I started to take my photography more seriously. It started when I got my Canon Rebl t3i from my husband for my birthday, and a few weeks later, my youngest daughter was born. I knew that I wanted to take pictures of my family and I was always so inspired by major photographers that I thought that it really couldn't be "that hard". (HA!) Throughout this post I'll show you some of my early work versus my more current work, as hard as they are to share, because it's important to show people that persistence pays off.

But before I show you my work in the beginning, let me say this: I am not where I want to be with my photography. I am moving in that direction and I've made some great progress, but I'm not done learning. I am constantly pushing myself to continue my education in the photography world. I take classes on CreativeLive, I'm in a dozen groups for photographers on Facebook where I get to watch other photographers learn with me, I'm taking hands on workshops and I practice.......a lot. So, like I said, although I have made some progress since the beginning, I'm still working on it!

Here is my first "photo shoot" with Elena. She was 3 months old. I used a wrinkled sheet on my couch for a backdrop, my camera's flash and had my camera on auto. The two in the middle are "edited", as well.

Here is one of my latest images of Elena.

And here is one of my more recent newborns. No flash, appropriate backdrop, LOTS of education and camera on AV.

Another early newborn vs. a newborn from about a year ago:

This one is fun because it's a comparison of the same location/lighting, just with additional knowledge of photography.

Just a few weeks ago. 

Here's one final comparison. The left picture is from a portfolio building session in 2013 and the picture on the right is from a fun session that I did back in March of 2016. 

No matter what you are doing, if you are persistent, you WILL get better. Your skills WILL improve. You'll learn just doing things repetitively, but you should also ask for help. Put yourself out there! I know that I am amazed at how far I've come, but more than that, I'm excited to see how far I go!