By Gail Bunning of Gail Anne Photography

Becoming a professional photographer has been one of the most difficult, most challenging and most rewarding paths in my life. I always knew that I wanted to take photos. Even as a child I had this fascination with how film and that little box worked. How it saw images different then my eye but more like my heart.

I blossomed into a “photographer” as an adult really. I can say it was right around when my first child was born. The inexpensive camera given to my husband and I served a great purpose as I snapped a million and one photos of this tiny creature we’d created. I started with the average snap shot and slowly moved to draping fabric across my living room. All a mess at the time, I cherish these photos as if the most professional and well known photographer had taken them.

I saved money, clipped coupons, taking her to Olan Mills and JCPenney’s, hoping for that perfect and beautiful shot of her perfect and beautiful smile and when her brother came along, I started all over again only this time I realized that no one could know them and capture them like I could and that started it off, this journey of photography.

I bought my first DSLR camera with 500.00 that I made designing for a church a million miles away. I met the man with the canvas bag in a coffee shop a half an hour away. I held that camera in my hands and just knew this was my calling. 500.00 opened up this huge, new world for me.

I read and learned and snapped. I joined a photography board. I decided to go pro. Decided. Such a funny word. I was no way ready to charge anyone for anything but I just knew that I needed to get these photos out. I wanted to share and snap. I was so excited. I was a photographer.

I upgraded that camera a year or so later. To something more professional. I’d “shot” families and babies and births. Examining each photo, editing, learning, absorbing. A few years later, another camera, more glass, more classes, more actions and more about the business. But what I forgot is that becoming, being a photographer doesn’t mean you shoot for money. You don’t become a photographer to make a million dollars, you become a photographer to capture moments in time. The income is just a job perk.

While I was capturing everyone else. Each event, each smile, each newborn, I missed photos of my own memories. Constantly worrying about light and marketing, I’d forgotten why I started this journey. To capture my life. The ups and downs of it. I was spending so much time coming up with a brand, an entire year passed by and all I had was portraits, perfect photos and not down and dirty kids in the mud. My oldest is ten and I am not sure there are ten photos of she and I together. I was so busy worrying about the perfect photo that I’d forgotten to hand the camera over and capture the moments with me in them.

I got lost in the photography.

Now I try and remember to capture the bed heads, the smiles and the tears and while there are still experiments in backdrops and lighting, I take their photos in full sun and leave the perfect to my clients. Okay, that’s not all true, sometimes they get imperfect because I want them to remember their families like I remember mine, perfectly imperfect, emotionally focused… a family, plain and simple. There is a time and a place for that perfect pose but I encourage you to remember to take pictures and not just portraits. They’re just as important. It’s the pictures that tell the stories of our lives. When your children have grown and moved out and your spouse’s looks fade into age, you’ll want to look back and see what once was. Photos capture the memories our heads can’t hold onto but I hearts long for. Remember to take pictures, even if they’re not perfect now, someday they will be.

This post was written by Gail Bunning of Gail Anne Photography. Gail is the mom to three plus one naughty beagle. She’s tattooed and changes her hair a lot. She loves her job, a lot. She loves people, and she loves watching families grow. Gail has a minor craft addiction and may or may not be utterly addicted to Facebook. Photography makes her happy, it’s her fire.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 9:00 am and is filed under Guest Bloggers, Photography Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.