My Photography Journey

Let me start this off by saying my photography journey has barely begun. I've learned so much over the last few years and I have so much more to learn and so many goals to achieve. I've always loved looking back at old photos though and seeing how far I've come, so this post is honestly mostly for myself to enjoy (although I hope you do too).

My very first camera was a little hot pink digital one I pretty much immediately lost the charger to. The SD card is only 4GB I think I must’ve been in fourth grade when I got it because the photos include some shots from a Lego robot competition my dad took us to, a Girl Scout event, and entirely too many selfies. Full disclosure, when I went through this card to find some photos to use, I got side tracked for awhile going through some old home videos I took. I may have a future as a director. Anyways, here are a few of those photos. For some reason about 80% of the images on that camera were VERY blurry, but I honestly kinda like these.

After I lost the charger to that camera, I didn't have my own for a few years. My dad bought himself a Canon and I distinctly remember I used it one time when I went to a flower garden with my mom and sisters. I'm sure I used the camera more than just that time, but this one has definitely stuck in my head the most.

I also found this photo somebody else must've taken on a cell phone or something of Baby Brina the photographer. I absolutely love the knee length shorts, so stylish.

Then in seventh grade, I got my first camera phone. This is when I think my interest in photography really got started. At the time, it was mostly me taking selfies or photos of random objects and then editing them to high heavens until they looked like poorly made pieces of pop art. I'm pretty sure a lot of the images from earlier on in this time period have disappeared, but here are a few of them that were still on the old phone. Most of these photos were taken to go on my original Instagram account (which I wish I hadn't deleted). Despite how cringy I feel about them now, I do think that this era was really important for me creatively. I had a lot of fun manipulating the pictures and trying out new things and I felt absolutely no pressure about any of it.

For Christmas my freshman year of highschool, I got my first real camera. It was a Sony α5000 and it served me pretty well for a couple of years. My first ever "photoshoot" was done on this camera with two friends, Leah and Sarah, who are still frequent faces in front of my lens. It was on a snow day and we couldn't drive yet so they were taken at the playground in our neighborhood. We were really just having a good time hanging out, but it was the first time I'd set something up with the sole purpose of taking photos. Then I promptly did not touch the camera again for a couple of months. The next set of photos off the camera are from my second "photoshoot" with my little sisters in the spring, again at the playground.

The main thing this camera did for me was go a lot of places. Up until this point in the story, I'd really only picked the camera up for fun a few times. I think when I really started to consider photography as a more serious hobby was when I started to travel. I went to London in September of 2015 and the camera came with me. It also went with me to Italy and France over the next two years. I loved taking pictures as I traveled (still do) and I even have a whole section of my portfolio dedicated to travel photos. It also went to New York and New Orleans, as well as plenty of local places. My dad always told me I had a good eye for photography, which really encouraged me to keep trying. These photos remain some of my all time favorites despite the varying styles and skill.

In the middle of all the traveling, I got Lightroom for the first time. Before this, I'd mainly been using VSCO to edit my photos. Let me tell you, my learning process with Lightroom is it's own journey. I have gone through so many edits and filters. I've considered buying presets plenty of times, but it has always been really important to me to learn this stuff myself. That said, it has taken me years to get to where I am and that's just Lightroom, I've barely touched all the capabilities Photoshop has. These are some of the very first edits I made on Lightroom.

The same summer I got Lightroom, I also did my first paid shoot. I got $20 and a latte from Leah to take her senior photos and honestly they aren't half bad.

Then, a couple months later I also took Sarah's. I was still unfamiliar with how the settings on a camera work, so the first set of photos we tried to get did not go well. They were very dark and although I'd brought a flash, I also didn't know how to use that so it was a mix of underexposed and over exposed photos. It wasn't the only time I wasn't happy with my own settings after a shoot, but it's all part of learning. No worries though, this time we were able to take some more a couple weeks later and they were much better.

Sometime around here, my dad bought himself a new Fuji X-T200, which I started to play with. I was starting to outgrow my Sony, which didn't have full manual capabilities. At the same time, I was also the editor for our high school yearbook which meant I was photographing a lot of school events. It was this time that I finally started to begin to understand how the settings on a camera work. My shooting started to get a lot better and more controlled. I was also taking a few portraits and teaching myself Lightroom, but I had yet to learn any form of consistency.

With college applications and the future on everybody's mind, I knew I needed to pick a major, at least for a starting point. My Instagram feed had become saturated with dozens of professional photographers, and I wasn't really interested in anything else so I decided to apply with my major as marketing. I would tell people I'm majoring in marketing to run my own photography business in the future. At first it was really just meant as a place holder so I could figure out a "real job," but it's just sorta stuck.

For my grad gift, my family got me my current camera. The Fuji X-T2, or "(Fl)Ash" as I call her. This camera is seriously my baby I absolutely adore her. My first semester of college I didn't do too much shooting, but second semester I aimed to use the camera at least once a week (which really ended up being more like twice a month). During this time I was finally starting to figure out how editing worked. I rotated through a couple different styles over the course of that year, but didn't love any of them.

The photos below are from the summer after senior college, until the summer after my first year of college. This was such a good year for me in terms of photography. I shot my first grad shoot, met some lovely seniors, and had plenty of friends model for me. No, I hadn't found the way I wanted to edit yet, but I was doing a lot of shoots I felt really good about.

Which brings me to the last 6ish months. Once again, first semester of my second year I barely touched my camera. I was feeling seriously uninspired and unmotivated. In November, I decided to buy myself a new lens to hopefully help me love my photos again. It worked. I've been shooting constantly since then. I bought the Fuji 35mm F2 lens and let me tell you, having a good portrait lens has changed the game. The lens was the final piece of the puzzle I needed to click my style into place. Editing my photos fell into place pretty quickly after that. Since then I have done some of my best work ever.

I've always been proud of my work, but looking back like this makes me that much prouder. So I guess this is all basically just to say thank you to everybody who's encouraged me, believed in me, and modeled for me to help me get to where I am today. There was a lot of time spent to get here between shoots, editing, and watching plenty of YouTube tutorials. I am nowhere near done with photography, but I'm hoping next time I write about my photography journey it won't be where I've come from, but how I turned it into a full time business.