I'm an artist!?!

Hi friends,

This morning I wanted to share a little bit about my journey with photography, and along with that, the bigger lesson learned from photography about embracing your uniqueness. This story does not portray me as a perfect person, it's a real story. I wish to be transparent on this page and in my life in general. I feel more comfortable sharing my imperfections than trying to appear that I do not have any. So here it is.

As you may have read on my about me section, I have always loved photography, basically before I knew I did. After my son was born I realized I wanted to capture moments and I needed a DSLR, as the  point and shoot was not getting the job done.

I moaned and whined for what seemed like forever about wanting a camera so I could just capture these visions of moments that floated around in my head. The time finally came last February. Our family came down to visit and my wonderful family had pitched in and come together to get me my first DLSR! Ok, now I could create these amazing pictures! Let's get started.

Let's just say that the "masterpieces" were not going to come together as easily as I had hoped. So the journey began. I began to study and soon realized photography was like a science, so technical! Well technicality isn't fun, reading terminology is not fun. This is not what I thought it would be. I was often convinced when practicing that throwing my camera in the river was a better choice than trying to master the combination of ISO, aperture, and shutter speed! I knew what I saw, and what I felt when taking a photo, I so badly wanted that to come out in my final image, but technicality got in my way, and so the camera sat in the bag more often than being used.

Through this time the moments did not stop appearing in my head, I still wanted to create.  I did do some photo shoots here and there, and I saw that I was learning, gradually. Each shoot I improved. This was good, and encouraging.....enter Mr. Comparison. Mr. Comparison is your worst enemy, he is sneaky and will overpower you before you realize what happened. I spent alot of time looking at other photographers images, which started out as inspiring, but soon led me to believe that everyone created a better image than me and there was no place for me within this field. Mr. Comparison had me believing a lie.

I have came to a realization that has blessed me greatly, it has helped me defeat Mr. Comparison and move forward. I do not consider myself a "photographer" but  have come to a place where I now see myself as an artist, as opposed to "the girl who is trying to be a photographer" If I am an artist then I am unique, I should be unique.

If you are an artist, your uniqueness is your greatest asset. Artists create their own niche. We each create out of our unique hearts. How amazing is that!

This is now me, I'm an artist who uses a camera. This view has allowed creativity to once again flow in me as it should. I am not stiffled trying to re-create someone elses style or worried so much about composition. The best artist knows the "rules" yet is free to break them. Don't we love those artists the most!? The ones that are not held back by anything.

While I do spend time looking, and admiring others photos, I now do not want to imitate, but want to allow my heart to take over, and to show others through my art, what my heart sees. It's me, its true, and it's  authentic.

Embracing our own talents and uniqueness allows us to be free, we will be blessed and in turn bless others. Each of us was created as we are for such a special specific reason. We were created piece by piece, with precision and reasoning behind what lies within. Let us dwell on that, and be thankful. Embrace what we were given, what was put in each of us, and run with it. :)