Just a measley little elective… an easy “A,” I thought. Only 6 more classes separated me from Graduation. Half-hearted, I showed up on the first day of class with my enormous camera that I had no idea how to use.  Why wouldn’t they just let me use a point-and-shoot? The teacher went on and on, throwing out buzz-words like aperature, depth-of-field, blah blah blah… she looked like a journalist, and she was. A photojournalist. Our first shooting project was assigned: take a picture of moving water by slowing down the camera. Huh?! One shot, and I was hooked. Who knew you could capture moving water like that?

Assignment by assignment, our professor taught us to tell a story with our pictures, so viewers wouldn’t need a caption to understand the emotion, humor, or feeling of the situation. Although I wasn’t preparing to work for a newspaper or National Geographic, I knew I loved the pictures which encapsulated the depth and composition of the subject.  And so I started snapping. Everything. My cat (poor thing), my husband (poor sucker), my nieces and nephews, nature, projects, random people, everything. Shooting in digital allowed me to take as many pictures as I pleased. I took a ton of horrible pictures, and I found that the more I took pictures of, the better I got. The things I was taking pictures of started to look on “film” the way I saw them in my head. My passion grew for photography, not only because I could now work my camera and take the pictures I wanted, it grew because I was capturing some of the most beautiful (and sometimes intangible) things God put here on this earth: smiles, laughter, tears of joy, the soft skin on a newborn baby, freshly fallen snow, blossoming flowers in Springtime, a Mother’s love for her baby growing inside. Every day, I get to soak in beauty and share it with others. This makes people happy, and this fills my heart with joy. What a fabulous feeling to prepare me for Christmas this Friday.

It was one year ago – almost to the day – that I started MB Photography. Blessings have abounded exponentially this year as my calendar was almost full with photo sessions, a few weddings (and even more for 2010!), a slew of sweet, new clients friends, all of your kind referrals to new business, a new house with my own office, and most of all, a husband who supports me fully and still loves me after hours and hours away from him so I can edit and run my business.  (My handsome husband, Bobby, below):

For all these things I am thankful.

I am confident that 2010 will be one heck of a year! Filled with even more new friends, new business, lots of weddings, and a full Inbox. Thank you for helping my business grow in 2009, and thank you for the countless e-mails of encouragement, and all the sweet comments left after each post on this crazy, little blog of mine. I am eternally grateful.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, filled with joy and happiness, and a fun and lively New Year! I will be taking a week-long break to celebrate the Holiday with my family and friends. If you send me an e-mail during that time, I may not respond right away, but I will be back in the groove starting January 4th! If you didn’t receive one of these in the mail, my sincere apologies. Here is my Christmas card to you. Merry Christmas!