I have been wanting to write this post for a few days now, trying to come up with the perfect words of what is going on in my head. I do not think I have gotten to that point yet but I don’t want to put it off any longer, so I am going to do my best.

I am approaching my 27th birthday tomorrow and have been reflecting on my life this past year and getting comfortable with being able to call myself an artist. I have been spending time this year really trying to define who I am as an artist and what I am passionate about and want to communicate through my portraiture work.

You can’t really be an artist if you don’t have a vision and if you can’t figure out who you are as an artist you will just get lost in the crowd, and in my case get lost in the sea of photographers that pop-up daily. What sets me apart? What sets my work apart from others? These are the questions that have been on my mind since becoming a full time photographer and I am happy to say that my passions are developing and my style is beginning to emerge more and more.

From the beginning of my business my tagline has always been “fun, fresh, personal, lifestyle”, I felt that these words best described the direction I wanted to head with my work. As an artist I have been in the process of developing my voice and from time to time I may have steered away from that tagline, trying to experiment and see if I like the style other photographers are doing, seeing if I want to do pictures like someone else. But I always come back to my tagline and look it over, and the images I end up enjoying the most always fall under my original vision. I want to create art with the people I photograph as they are right now, I want to know them personally, I want whatever is in the inside to come out in the outside, and most importantly I want us to have fun doing it. I want laughter, goofiness, and joy to come pouring out of my images and I want love to be exalted.

I stumbled upon this blog post very recently by a photographer named Jack Hollingsworth and I read it at just the right time, it is exactly what I needed to hear and he put into words perfectly how I was feeling with the world and how I wanted to set myself apart. Here is a tiny excerpt of what he wrote:

“Sadly, I think our popular culture has unfairly conditioned us to think of portraiture as either sexy or serious. This, in my humble opinion, is a travesty. I’d like to lead the pack and reclaim portraiture from the realms of sexy, serious and superficial…back into the realms of innocence, playfulness, soulfulness. I’d like to see us make the experience of portraiture more about the inward, rather than the outward, journey.

We need a new playbook. And not one built on reality TV shows of supermodels. Our new photographic playbook needs to be built on sincerity, honesty, authenticity, originality. Being who we are. Not who we’re trying to be. Please, no more elevation and exultation of soul-less portraiture and lifestyle photography. It’s time to return to our roots of real emotion, real expression, real identity.

There is nothing in this world more beautiful, inside and out, than a person expressing sincere, deep down, joyous emotion in a photograph. I might also add that, in photography circles today, there is also nothing more coveted than photographers who know how to capture this sort of raw emotion. It’s a beautiful thing.

I like to think of happiness as more outward and temporary. And joy as more inward and long-lasting. Our goal is to get our subjects to express deep-down, from-the-heart, raw emotion.”

 

THAT is the type of photography I want to be apart of, REAL photographs, of REAL people, being who they are and being proud of it. No more trying to hide who you are, pretending to be something you are not, I want to photograph those being imperfectly perfect. This is what I plan to pursue and this is what I hope people take away from my work.

I wanted to share just one photograph with everyone before I end this blog post. I had a family session yesterday evening and this just so happens to be one of my first shots from our time together. I can’t wait to share the whole session with you and to share a detailed story behind this image, but until then I think the image may speak for itself. Enjoy.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank and welcome all the new visitors who have visited my blog this month. One of my goals for 2010 was to grow the amount of people who visited my blog and try to reach 1,000+ visitors in one month. I know 1,000 visitors in one month isn’t much for some blog who can get that in an hour but for my business that was a good goal for me that I surpassed greatly this month finally! I couldn’t have done it without many of you who spread the word and pointed people to my little space on the world wide web. So I guess the next goal should be 1,500 visitors in a month or 2,000? Hmmmm? None the less it can’t be done without all of you who continue to support me and give me encouragement. In other news, I am also getting close to reaching 500 fans on my facebook fan page, which means another give away is coming up to one lucky fan. If you haven’t joined my facebook fan page yet, go do it! Then go tell your friends to join.

Also, for visiting the blog today I wanted to share 2 images with you from some sessions coming up, I have an engagement session taken at the W Hotel in Dallas hitting the blog tomorrow and a kid session to follow shortly after. Stay tuned and enjoy!

I wanted to share some great news with everyone for this end of the month post. The Wedding Chicks blog is a great resource for brides-to-be for planning their wedding, whether it is to hunt down wedding vendors or just to get daily inspiration, ideas, and DIY tips. I have been following the blog myself for awhile and love seeing all the inspiration posts from other photographers and one of my goals was to get my own work posted on their blog to serve as inspiration for others. It just so happens that the time has finally come and they felt that my work from Jade’s Bridal Session was a great fit for their site! I couldn’t be more excited for the opportunity and so happy to be featured on this wonderful blog. Go check out my featured work and leave a comment, they would love to hear from you.

I was also surprised to hear that one of my images had popped up on the inspiration board post on the Wedding Wire blog. It was a nice surprise to discover from Google Alerts, which is a free resource for people to see what others are saying about you on the web, if you don’t have it you should well…google it and get more info. You can check out the post by clicking here or the image below.

This past Sunday I participated in the Lakeside Bridal Fair hosted at the Hilton Hotel in Rockwall by having my own booth. This was my first time to have a booth at a bridal fair, I was so excited to take part in something that made me feel like a “real” business. It is easy to start your own business and to tell people about your business, but since I shoot on location and don’t have my own studio this was the first time I had to create something that represented my business. Okay let me be completely honest and rephrase that last part, I had to rely on the assistance of others to help me create a space that represented my business. It is so important for photographers to create a brand for themselves and continue that brand in every aspect of their business or else clients and people looking at your business will never remember who you are. Photographs and styles are constantly changing so you need something that can be consistent and stick in the minds of people. I felt this booth was a huge success with the small budget I had for the booth and I couldn’t have done it without my wonderful wife Jessica (providing awesome table decorations), my aunt Lena (using her awesome sewing skills for my table runners), my friend Jayme (providing my awesome sign), Freddy (for creating simple and great floral arrangements), and last but not least my wonderful and amazingly awesome friend and wedding planner Stephanie Torres of Stephanie Michele Events. Stephanie really helped pull everything together and really help me create something that represented who I was and what my business represented. Everything was kept simple and clean while focusing around my business colors of white, yellow, and grey. Any photographers or people in the wedding industry who want to hear my full experience and advice for considering bridal fairs please click the link below the pictures. Thanks everyone who helped me out and sent their love and support.

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Blog has been a little silent these past couple of weeks, but rest assured I am still around! I have been recovering from a little sickness bug that hit last week and I am now starting to feel better. A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet one of my favorite photographers, not only did I get to meet him but I also got to join in one of his first workshops! I can’t tell you how excited I was about this workshop, I still don’t think I have the exact words to describe how I felt. Because of his creativity and unique ‘look’, he inspired me to pursue photography and be just as passionate,  and to top it all off he is an incredible christian guy. His passion goes way beyond just photography, and is centered around God, which has always attracted me more and more to his work. I knew just having the chance to be around him would inspire me and push me to be a better artist. Here is a picture of of Jeremy Cowart and I after the workshop. (If you want to read a full recap of the workshop click the link after the image below)

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