Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself

As I sit here making a goal sheet for the first quarter of 2026, my mind wonders off. I can’t help but think back on late 2024 to the summer of 2025. It was nothing special and if I’m honest, it was a little disappointing. Beginning of last year, I designed a new studio downstairs with high hopes of working with newborns. I had so many props proudly displayed on the shelves. We had three babies born in the family so I was really excited to be the new baby photographer in the family. I tried keeping y’all up to date with pregnancies and birth announcements but as always I failed to follow through. This year I’m really going to work on that. I’m so bad at keeping y’all up to date with my life because I feel like a little peon in this big social world online. I’m just trying to stay a float with a little photography gig I’ve got going on. So it’s a struggle to make the time to talk about myself. I feel so conceited. lol. Meet the two new tiny people entering the family. Christopher is my sister’s son and the little girl is my brother in law’s baby.

So let me begin by recapping last year. It’s the footprint of how the future of my business will run for now on. There were many changes in the business world. To start off, I stopped all sessions except for weddings. I began helping a friend work her catering company and enjoyed all the home making lessons school doesn’t teach you. I was cooking meals, cutting fruit, planting and picking from her home made garden, as well as canning and labeling home made jams. It was a wonderful experience, fed my desire to live on ten acres and learn how to take care of the property. Fast forward to present time. I no longer wish to work land…. or any land. We have landscapers for that and I will forever keep them in business. My friend had several thankless weekends of moving hay bales, cutting grass and maintaining the land and everything that goes with it. Her duties required her from sun up to sun down. I’ll take the ten acres, but I’d also need help and no longer interested in doing it all myself.

Since my friend bales hay, of course I got to play on the hay. This is the first time, in my life, I’ve been able to jump on hay bales. This has always been a childhood dream I was able to experience with Jenna. I was so excited and couldn’t erase the smile from my face for the rest of the day. I guess from all the cartoons I use to watch as a kid, where the princess would jump out of a castle and fall into a bale of hay, I always thought it would be a soft landing. Well, it wasn’t. It’s not even like jumping on a trampoline. More like jumping on soft ground. Jenna and I had so much fun chasing each other and jumping from bale to bale. I felt like a kid again, forgetting the world’s problems for as long as I was able to jump. Meanwhile, the adults were taking photos and laughing so hard, swearing to each other that I’d lost my mind.

During the week, I didn’t have time for anything. My time was always consumed by my day job and family life. Saturdays were spent on my friend’s farm with no time for much else. I was too tired Saturday evening to do anything. Sundays were for Church and rest. My photography business took a back seat, with few weddings to work on. Last year was, by far, the slowest year I’ve had. Every time I sat down to write a blog or make a reel, I pushed it away thinking I’m no one special. There are better photographers out there who were already established. I wasn’t trying to have a pitty party, I just didn’t know where I fit in, in the photography world. I didn’t know how to be different or how to find my people.

Last year sparked some old interests in me I thought were long gone. Two things being a new love (more of a heavy like) for reading and a renewed love for quilting. I’ve read four books in six months. My usual reading record is a book a year, if I’m lucky. Or if I read that often. I read two books myself and used a reading app for the other two books. Those reading apps are life changing, especially for my commute to work. Here are a couple of books I read. The Girlfriend was my favorite. It was very suspenseful. The First Family was a fun read. I never would’ve been interested in a book like this had it not been for the Outlander Show. I was addicted to that show. I can’t wait for the last season. Wouldn’t it be neat if we could go back in time, one hundred years and walk our stomping grounds of today’s time?

My other favorite hobby is going to the fabric store with my mom. I am the truest of true beginners because when I leave the house, I have a vision of what I want to make. When I enter the quilt shop and see a bunch of bright, happy patterns, I completely change my mind and vision of what I want to do. I get lost in all the choices of fabric and have to narrow down thirty fabric choices to about ten fabrics. So far, I only know how to make something out of squares but this year I will venture out and make something different. I’m finishing this Fall colored quilt I started last September. I hope to make a Christmas quilt and another quilt with some of the bright fabric I saw. Quilting has been such a de-stresser for me. I love the sound of the sewing machine and how it hums the craziness of the world away for a while.

Last year had many perks and blessings and among some of them, I think I’ve finally figured out the kind of photographer I want to be. This is a bad example because there are better ways to word this but to cut out all the fat, I want to be like your family mechanic. There are as many mechanics out there as there are photographers but how do you know who will treat you right, not lie to you, treat you like family and not break the bank? Well, those are all the qualities and descriptions I want to describe me. When you know someone who deserves the best kind of treatment, I want you to think of me and send them my way. Now, the reason I compare myself to a mechanic is because no one is better than Uncle Bob’s friend who works out of his garage and not some big fancy auto store with marble flooring. You want a mechanic who will fix the problem and not band aid it to coast you down the road for something bigger to happen which sometimes results in the mechanic receiving a bigger payout. I don’t want to oversell you or overprice what you need. I want to take the process of your wedding planning one step at a time. Lets focus on the wedding, photos, details and all the fun things that make the day so special.

Once your wedding day has become a memory, let’s work on your wedding album….when you’re ready to do so. I waited seven years until I was ready to invest in a wedding album and if I didn’t receive a discount for being a photographer, I probably wouldn’t have invested in the album when I did. Being this is my second marriage, I have other priorities to put my money towards rather than an album to sit on the table. So I get you. I want your wedding experience (whether this is your first or second marriage) to be fun, enjoyable and help you stay within your budget.

So What’s Changing

I don’t want to be the same price for everyone. Since no wedding is the same and no Bride has the desire to be pampered the same way, I’ve found weddings are not cookie cutter couples. So why should the pricing be? I’m the kind of photographer who will charge you based on what you want. Not what I expect to be paid or how much I need to recoup from a recent vacation.

This year I also plan to bring back mini sessions and family sessions. As many of you know, minis fluctuate in price depending on if theres a rental fee at the location. I will do my best to keep the cost reasonable and affordable for everyone. I hope to meet many families in my community as well as surrounding areas. This year I hope to be on your list of favorite photographers.

You can keep up with me through my website and check this link for mini sessions offered through the year https://book.usesession.com/i/XgLLsn9PTo