Im REALLY going to do it!

I have always wanted to do photography. I just wasn't brave enough for the longest time. Finally I took a class in Seattle and my parents gave me a really great camera for Christmas...and then the world went digital on me. Its hard to do photography using film in a digital world. So I put it on hold got married, kids, Johns been in school, now the time is bad in the economy but John and I have talked it over and we both know that it will be good for me to follow my dreams now, even in the midst of childbearing and small children! Not to sound doomsdayish either but I know that if anything were to ever happen to John this is what I would want to do to support my family. Flexible hours and can be worked around my time.

Well, I still have to wait a little because Ive been doing a bunch of research on cameras and the one I want is the Nikon D80....which retails at Costco for $819.99. So...I guess not quite yet since we will buy it with our tax return this year. But that just means I have a lot of time to read and learn, which I have been doing for the last 2 weeks or so. I also have been working on learning how to photoshop photos in Elements since photography now does mean digital editing. Here is a picture (I dont take credit for the picture, its one of the ones we had taken when we did our family pictures) that I worked on using lighting effects and some other little tricks...



First off...isn't Caleb DARLING! I still need to learn how to edit things out, like the blue thing in the background, but like I said I'm just learning and I was practicing lighting this time around.

I'm not shooting to be a REAL professional right now, perhaps someday when we can afford all the right lenses to go with my camera, but for now I want to be good enough to capture our family's happy life and also to provide affordable pictures to families who cant really pay more than $50-$100 for family pictures. Plus its how I want to be able to pay for Christmas each year is by doing fall and Christmas pictures for people. I just want to do the shoot and then give them a CD with all their pictures on it so they can use them on their blogs, send them to family, and print what they want.

I'm SO excited that its really going to happen...and I cant get enough of what the web has to offer me in terms of learning now, so when January comes and I can buy my camera I will be ready!