What sparked my passion for photography

My passion for photography started as a tween when my friends and I would put on makeup (lots of it) and take each others’ pictures. Here are a few of the classics. As you can see, we were terrible photographers in middle school! The photo in the middle is best but my friend’s took it. I laugh so hard looking at these now.

 As I grew up and went out into the “real world” I needed to get a real job so I went to college, entered the workforce and pretty much forgot about photography. My passion for it was sparked again in 2010 during a soccer tournament trip to Virginia Beach. We visited the botanical gardens and my daughter, who was 13 at the time, started taking photos of the all the beautiful flowers there with the little point and shoot camera we had with us. At the time I thought those were the best flower pictures ever and they were pretty good. Looking back at them now that I’ve learned a few things about photography, they weren’t the most spectacular flower photographs after all but they still hold a special place in my heart.  Here are two that she was most proud of.

Still two of my all time favorite flower photographs since this is when I began wanting to learn photography and what started me on this awesome journey! It took me until I was 38 years old to finally find my passion for photography. I suppose you’re never too old huh? I often wonder though what I could have accomplished had I pursued photography as a profession right out of high school and gotten formal training. Coulda, shoulda, woulda.