Step One

I know it's cliche', but I can't get that quote, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" out of my head. The new blog has officially launched, and while it still needs a great deal of work, and I REALLY need to finish the website first and foremost, I must admit that its completion feels like that first "single step". I am nervous and excited and overwhelmed all at once and I just feel like this dream is beginning to take shape and become tangible.

I also want to, once again, take the opportunity to exclaim my gratitude to Jen & Gary Mobbs of Mobbs Photography (my awesome wedding photographers). Jen- without your help, I have NO IDEA how I would have figured all of this out! Thank you a million times over!

Check out the new blog here.

Alex is here!

After having such fun at my first ever maternity session, I've been so looking forward to meeting Alex as he made his entrance into the world! While he arrived in early February, the activity in the DesRosiers' house has been a little hectic (duh!) and we finally were able to schedule a time to meet last Saturday. Alex wasn't feeling his best, but we had a great time nonetheless! One of the things that I really enjoy about photographing babies and kids is that they are just these perfect little metaphors of life- they change in an instant, from quiet to chaotic to bursting with joy...and just when it seems that the tears will never end, we are graced with a heart-stopping smile and the sadness and frustration just melt away.

I've almost learned how to use my slideshow software, so look for a slideshow soon!!

Until then, here are a few to tide you over...










Bailey says that SHE used to get that kind of attention!

In a Flash!

As the school semester and my law school career begin to (thankfully!) draw to a close, I found myself thinking this morning about what I will take away from my experience even though I've decided not to pursue a career in the law. Aside from fluency in "legal-ese", I have been fortunate enough to make a few friends along the way. Different from the friends of your childhood or those go-to pals that can be counted on in thick & thin, good classmates are valuable in their own right. Sure, they can pass along notes for classes that you miss and can make great study partners, but more than anything, they remind you that you are all in this together, that your difficulty is shared, that you are not alone.

I didn't actually get to know Alison until this year, but her sense of humor and fun personality has already made school a more pleasant place! When she agreed to let me chase her German Short-haired Pointer puppy, Flash, around with my camera, I was really excited!

The late afternoon was mighty chilly, but as the sun began to drop, the light turned this amazing golden color and I just couldn't get enough of Flash in the tall grass!

Here are a few favorites...

With a Little Help From Our Friends...

I have several other posts that I've started and not finished yet, but I wanted to get this one down "on paper" before my emotions began to fade...

This afternoon I met with local wedding photographer extraordinaire, Shane Snider, and he was really fantastic. Shane photographed the wedding of our good friends Jennie & Rebekah in November of 2007 (you may remember Jennie from our wedding photographs- she was our officiant!) and Jennie has been encouraging me to contact him. It took me a little while to find the courage...not every photographer I've approached has been exactly welcoming (which I suppose is understandable) and that pesky voice in the back of my head kept saying things like, "What if he takes one look at your work and tells you that you might want to go take the bar exam after all?" But contact him I did and he actually agreed to meet with me (thank you, Jennie!!)!

So, after three outfit changes (again! I've been changing clothes a lot this week, eh?) and armed with a box of cookies (are people allowed to be mean if you bring them cookies?), I left the house an hour before our scheduled meeting time (just in case!)...and arrived on his block with nearly forty minutes to spare. Yes, I'm a dork. So I sat in my car in a parking lot down the street and listened to the remainder of my book on tape (I told you- I'm a dork!), doing deep breathing and trying to figure out how to NOT seem totally intimidated.

I need not have worried. Shane was awesome. After the preliminary warnings of how tough an industry this is and some discussion about gear and must-have lenses, etc, he really helped me prioritize some of the steps I need to take and gave me some fantastic advice about finding my own style, consistency, and how to really get going. He even took some time to look at what I posted on my SmugMug page and gave some great constructive feedback.

I just walked out of his office this afternoon SO excited. It's photographers like him, like the Mobbs, like Meredith that help me combat thos voices in my head, that make me feel like I'm not completely insane to have chosen this path, and that I can, with a lot of hard work, make it.

Thanks, Shane!

Tots 2 Teens Seminar

On Monday we had snow. Enough to close down all of the local public schools. Today it was over 80 degrees. Incredible! For the first time, it is beginning to feel like the end of school is really as near as it is and that the next stage of my life is really hovering just beneath the surface alongside the crocus flowers! Oh, the anticipation of Spring!

With my heart and eyes toward that future, I attended Sandy Puc's Tots 2 Teens Seminar today and was just blown away by the amount of information that she shared!



After three outfit changes (casual? trendy? business-y?) , I arrived at the seminar site thirty minutes before its scheduled start time, repeating the mantra, "I am not intimidated, I am not intimidated, I am not intimidated..." over and over in my head. I was completely intimidated. I was totally convinced that everyone there would just take one look at me and know I was a big fat wanna-be with no skills. Fortunately, I remembered after a few minutes there, that no one was paying any attention to me- everyone was there to learn, just like me! So I drooled over the gorgeous and quirky Finao products and played with the Canon 5D Mark II for the first time (oh, how I adore thee!) before settling into my seat poised with paper and pen to absorb every last bit of information I could glean.

I have to make a confession. After searching the big ol' World Wide Web for seminars and workshops that I could both fit into my current school schedule AND afford right now and finding almost nothing under $250, I was a little skeptical of a 6 hour seminar that cost only $79. After being disappointed with a photography course at a local art center that I took last summer, I was worried that this would be another "you get what you pay for" kind of deal and I was fully prepared with low expectations. Lesson learned. I frantically scribbled over thirty pages of notes as I attempted to keep up with the marketing plans, the descriptions of tools and camera settings, and tricks for making children sit still for more than two seconds. While I am not sure that a full-time children's portrait studio is my goal, I learned SOOOO much that I can't wait to apply to my business and to my photography! I have a couple of children/family sessions lined up for this week (I'm on Spring Break- yay!!) and I can't wait to try out some of what I learned!

Risk

"Text me when you get there! Please be careful- my life is in that car!" I yelled to Justin this morning as he walked up the hill to where his snow covered car was blowing out warm-up exhaust. He's off to orientation. Orientation at another hospital. The one where he will be picking up extra shifts. So that I can be a photographer instead of a lawyer. In the snow. In North Carolina. Where they don't salt the roads and no one knows how to drive in it.

I read a post recently on one of the many blogs that I obsessively follow that discussed holding on too tightly. I struggle with it every day. Maybe it's because I'm an oldest child. Maybe it's because I'm a girl. Maybe it's genetics. Maybe it's because I've had cancer more than once and know how quickly life can change. I hold on too tightly.

I have a funny risk tolerance. The notion has come up repeatedly lately as people respond to this career change I've decided on. You can tell the people with low risk tolerance immediately...when I mention that I'm shelving my legal career to pursue photography, they begin to blink quickly and insist that I HAVE to take the bar! Their discomfort is evident and I am often at a loss to convince them that I truly believe that it will all be okay, that they can't say anything that the voice of doubt in my head hasn't mentioned a thousand times a day.

My risk tolerance for most things is pretty high. I worked for years as a whitewater river guide, as a backpacking guide, and have done all of those "life to do list" things like sky-dived and bungee jumped and mountain biked in Moab. I quit school to "play outside" and moved on a whim whenever I got a craving for new geography. I met my husband when he and I were both jobless and hiking from Georgia to Maine, not sure exactly where we'd land when the hike was over! I like that kind of risk, it is what makes me feel like I am really living and not just "getting by." I recognize that, to great extent, it has been a privilege to be able to make these choices, and I will be the first to admit that not every risk I've taken has panned out as planned.

But over the last few years, there are areas of my life in which my tolerance for risk has diminished. While I'm still content to "jump out of a perfectly good airplane," watching my husband drive away on icy, unsalted, roads to a hospital an hour away makes my heart clench with fear. The safety and well-being of the ones I love is a risk that I'm no longer comfortable with.

So I will sit here and keep reminding myself that I can't hold on so tightly and wait for that phone to ring.