When I first started photography, I was just so excited about everything I was learning that I didn’t stop to consider much else.  I had felt creatively caged for so long…and then – all the sudden – I was making something.  And I loved it.  But I was also making something that I had never been taught how to do…so I was learning on my own.  With immense diligence and long hours.  While everyone else was sleeping…I stayed up learning.  I felt that it was the only way that I was going to make it as a self-taught photographer.

In turn, this consumed my thoughts for a long time.  The learning curve.

It didn’t take long though for me to realize that there was something so much more amazing happening by being a photographer.  And that was the story.  Bit by bit, as I got to know my clients better…I realized that I was now being invited to share in their life…sometimes on their most significant days.  Whether it’s an engagement…a wedding…even the birth of a baby…there are few things more humbling than being offered to be there through it all.

As I roll through my fourth year of being a photographer, I’m at the stage where many of my couples are starting new chapters in their lives.  A part of the story filled with so much joy…so much laughter…and a lot less sleep!

Heather and Tom are – in a word – amazing!  We first met at one of my other couple’s wedding [also amazing!] and touched base just as our little Avery was coming into the world!  Their engagement session was a bit of an adventure knee deep in a swamp and their wedding was out of this world.

I remember having to contact them in Thailand to let them know that their images had been chosen as a feature in the Fall/Winter 2013 Issue of Ottawa Wedding Magazine [on news stands NOW!] and how exciting it was for all of us to anticipate seeing them in print.

In a few short months, I will join them in their home so that I can meet their little girl for the first time.  We’ll share stories about parenthood and swoon over her perfect fingers and tiny toes.  And it will be one more chapter in our story together…one more moment in our list of experiences that we’ve shared over the last two years.

And that was something that I never anticipated as I sat at my computer years ago, listening to Photoshop tutorials during all hours of the night.  I didn’t anticipate the friends…the moments…the amazing lives that I would get to be a part of because of the gift that God has shared with me.

And that alone, is the single greatest thing that keeps me learning these days.  The desire to keep having those relationships with as many people as I can.  The desire to be a part of it all…to still share in it all…to capture it all…

Heather and Tom…you know I adore you!

Thank you for letting me be a part of your beautiful story…