I was not one of those little girls that dreamed of her wedding day,

I did not grow up with grandparents that gifted me their vintage film cameras. And I am not from a town that was large enough to offer photography classes in high school. There was nothing that guiding me to my photography journey. I didn't follow in anyone's footsteps or have the pressure of a legacy to keep alive.

My love for photography grew from a self conscience teenager that was filled with insecurity and a deep longing to love herself for who she was.

I did not choose photography. 
Photography chose 

me.

My story did not have very happy beginnings. The memories of my childhood are not something I will ever care to relive.. I am the oldest of five girls (and I have 3 brothers and an older half sister) and we moved a few months before I finished kindergarten. My parents did the best they could and I know that they love me dearly, but I did not fit in as a kid in my new school. I struggled from first grade through sixth grade to make and keep friends and find things I had in common with my peers. All throughout elementary school, I focused on my studies -- I was in the spelling bee, mathletes (challenge 24, anyone?) and hated being tardy. We moved again right at the end of 6th grade and by the time I was 12, there was absolutely no hope for me to start over again. I was a full blown emo kid rocking Good Charlotte and Evanescence band tees and `oversized bondage pants from Hot Topic.. I know. You don't need to say anything... 

But I believe the struggles I faced in my youth are exactly the path that brought me to where I am now. Because I was a weird, emo kid that didn't have many friends, I turned to music, theatre and Myspace. And what got me through the years of loneliness was admiring all the Tumblr influencers, taking photos on my cheap digital camera in my bathroom and spending hours printing them out at Walgreens. I didn't think I was photogenic or naturally pretty at the time and was bullied heavily the last few years of high school. I was incredibly shy and introverted and truly just wanted to run away to the Oregon Coast. 

A few years after I graduated, I bought my first DSLR and had a burning desire to learn how to use it for self portraits. I booked two professional photoshoots of myself to learn how it felt to be in front of the camera and took many portraits of my cats. I was in my first semester of college with no idea what I wanted to study, when I discovered the Photography and Analog Film program. I enrolled with absolutely no experience how to actually use a camera until I was offered the opportunity to shadow a photographer at a wedding by pure luck. That's all it took for me to dive head first in everything I needed to start a business. I maxed out my credit cards upgrading my camera gear, offered a few free shoots for practice and booked two weddings within months of launching my business. 

Many years later, hundreds of weddings captured and a community filled with creative outkasts like me, and I found a life I never thought was possible for me to live. I've traveled all over the world, met the most incredible people along the way and learned to fall in love with all my flaws and imperfections through lots and lots of self portraits taken on my camera. My love for photography runs deep within my soul and will forever be apart of my narrative. Although the introduction was wildly unconventional, I know my experience and challenges give me a unique perspective of just how incredibly special the small squares of colorful and vibrant life that we capture and look back at are. The messy, candid, imperfect, unflattering, dirty, caught off guard portraits are going to be all we have one day and my oh my, the stories they'll tell will be invaluable.