Growing up, I knew one thing I wanted in life: art. I didn’t know what kind. I didn’t even really know how much that word could potentially encompass. I remember at seven or eight years old telling my dad that I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. I know he was probably really worried about me wasting my life and becoming homeless, but what he said to me in response changed my viewpoint of myself and the world forever. “You can’t be an artist – you won’t make enough money.”
It didn’t really stop me from drawing and sculpting and painting and all of the lovely things that can be included under the broader word, art. But I began to believe that I wasn’t good enough. That I would never be good enough. He was right. I wouldn’t make enough money as an artist because my art was not improving like other kids my age. I should just give up. And I did. Despite this, the love of art remained like a tiny spark of a dream.
But something my dad didn’t think about when he said those words was how much art is around us. How much we need it as humans. And it has taken me twenty years to figure out which form of art suits me the best. Twenty years, two kids, and countless wrong choices.
And what is that form of art, you ask? Is it writing? I have a Facebook page dedicated to that, so it must be! Well, no. Unfortunately, I have learned over the last three years especially that writing is not the career I was meant for. It’s a passion – a fire that stays lit, even when I can’t bear to sit down and put words to a page. But it’s a passion that works best as a hobby. And a hobby is where it will stay.
No, what I have finally found out about myself is my skill in and – even more importantly – my love for photography.
I was exhausted and in the throes of depression and anxiety.
First, a little backstory. When we moved to Korea, I told my husband I wanted a camera to start taking pictures of birds. We love watching them and identifying species we hadn’t seen or heard yet, and it’s a great way to make hiking even more fun. So, why not try to capture images of our favorite birds to keep as mementos when we return to the States? And thus, we got a camera somewhere around my birthday in 2021.
I didn’t use it as much at first as I wanted. The lens was simple and didn’t zoom in much, and I’d never learned all the different settings a big DSLR has to offer. Honestly, the idea of learning all these settings was terrifying. Not to mention how big of a variety there was between lenses, what the numbers meant, what a lens filter was…the list goes on. And I – at this point – maybe have a grasp on a quarter of it.
Then, after we got home from our trip to a wedding, I made a wonderful friend. Someone I connected with in a way that is rare for me. She showed me how beautiful and simple photography can be. She talked about how I didn’t need a bunch of fancy equipment – just my camera and maybe Adobe Lightroom to make my life a little easier.
Fast forward to after my son was born, and things really changed. I was exhausted and in the throes of depression and anxiety. I wanted so desperately to have his newborn pictures, but I was too anxious to ask that same friend to come take pictures of him – even after she was so gracious with my maternity shoot. I was too afraid of my appearance and too sad and tired to think about making myself look presentable, much less make the rest of my family do the same.
After around a month, I became distressed about missing the opportunity entirely. I was watching friends get their new baby’s newborn pictures done and became so overwhelmingly jealous. I wanted to scream at the world for how unfair life felt in that moment. Instead, I just cried. A lot.
When I talked to my friend about this, she told me I had the ability to do them for myself if I wanted to. Short spurts – one or two photos at a time. Just do a Google search for DIY newborn photography. So, I did just that. And there are TONS of blogs on the subject for tired, anxious mamas like me. I read dozens. How to pose baby, how to support them, how to angle the camera. All of it. And honestly, they didn’t come out too bad. Did I get family shots? No. I still didn’t understand my camera well, and by this point, my husband was back to work. But I got something.
Then, I asked myself a question: could this really be a thing I can do?
I didn’t consider it much more until someone mentioned to me that they wanted a birth photographer. I thought it would be a wonderful experience, and I offered to do it for her. When her baby came too quickly for such a shoot, I offered to take pictures of her new baby instead.
In that moment, I was angry. I felt roasted - made to feel stupid by a stranger. How dare she tell me what to do?
And it’s here that I met my soon-to-be mentor. I was ignorant, and I was by no means a professional. So far, I’d only done my son’s photos and quite a bit of birds. But here in Korea, there are a lot of military spouses who are photographers. So, naturally, there’s a group for just those photographers. In that page, I posted a request to borrow some wraps.
In a comment on that post, I was approached by a lovely woman named Jurate, who offered to train me first in newborn photography before allowing me the opportunity to rent her props. My response was, “…with a spotter and a simple backdrop on the floor, I think I can do some simple poses…”
Oh, man, that was the wrong answer. Baby on floor = no no. Many of those DIY newborn photography blogs had steered me wrong. Maybe it was okay for me to put my baby on the floor, but someone else’s? Forget it! In that moment, I was angry. I felt roasted – made to feel stupid by a stranger. How dare she tell me what to do?
But she was right. There are much better options than the floor – options that carry less risk of getting baby sick or hurting baby. And at the end of the day, they don’t cost a lot.
I did not take that baby’s pictures. I’m sure her mama is still kind of bummed about it, but it was probably for the best. A few days into the new year, Jurate approached me in private to ask how I felt about pursuing newborn photography as an option. My knee-jerk reaction was to say, “Hell no!” After all, my ego was still a bit bruised.
I found myself understanding the difference between a hobby and a career.
She was so kind in her messages, though. Encouraging. So, I asked her how much she charged to teach me. And then I asked my husband about it. We discussed it heavily. What if I didn’t like newborn photography? Why waste the money on the woman who originally made me feel so down about myself?
He told me to try it anyway. “If anything, it’ll be a lesson in how you operate in this field.” So, I took Jurate up on her offer and scheduled a couple of days to train. And train me she did – not just in newborn photography, either. She trained me in the business of photography. How to think like a photographer. Shortcuts to keep me from spending thousands of dollars on things I don’t need right this second. She even took extra time to break down all the numbers and figure out how much I needed to charge in order to make a profit.
I went from feeling grumpy about a woman I didn’t know bothering me on Facebook about something I saw as trivial to feeling enriched and grateful for her tutelage and encouragement. I found myself understanding the difference between a hobby and a career. What it meant to be a professional artist, and more importantly, how much I could make if I put in the time and effort to give people the art they craved – unique to them.
After our lessons, I got to practice under her strict guidance on a real babe. I didn’t wrap him or pose him. I didn’t choose the props. But I did use my camera. A lot.
Even though I knew I wasn’t in charge, I was terrified just being there. I was shaking as the parents walked in, and Jurate took the baby and started dressing him. But I couldn’t back out. I had invested, and I needed to see it through.
The session itself was exhausting. I learned quite a bit about myself that day. I need a snack right before, lest my blood sugar drop. Because the prime time to do a newborn shoot is between 10 AM and noon, lunch will always be late. And it’s not always super easy to get the right angles on baby, so it’s a bit of a workout for two hours straight.
The results, though, were spectacular, and I was feeling fabulous. Two weeks later, I told Jurate I wanted to do one more – this time with me leading, and her just there as a guide. I had purchased some backdrops, a trampoline with a bar to use as my traveling studio, and a bunch of second-hand outfits, wraps, and props. So, we put out a model call. The return was swift, indeed.
I find it a little symbolic, what I did next. I knew I needed something to carry all of my stuff in, preferably with wheels to make my life easier. The only luggage I have with wheels is one I got for free on sheer luck at the airport the day my daughter and I flew to Korea and began our new chapter in life. Her bag had busted on our way to check-in, and I remember the panic I felt. I remember feeling the tears that flooded my eyes as I tentatively asked the woman behind the counter where I could buy a new bag. That kindness she showed me felt like the cherry I needed on top of another journey in my life. So, I used that very same bag. The next thing I knew, it was the night before the shoot, and I was packed and ready to go, anxious as I was.
I had watched a bunch of videos up to this point. I read a lot of blogs. And the one glaringly obvious thing about it all was it was coming from a place of experience. Years of it.
“Essentials for a Traveling Studio”
“Wraps for Beginners”
“Best Beginner Poses”
And these were all super helpful! But none of them were on my level. Where was the havoc I had in my bedroom? Where was the awkward feeling of carrying all this mess to a fourteenth-floor apartment? Where was the, “It’s okay, I messed up, too!” The night before my shoot, that’s all I wanted to know. I wanted to connect with someone. Then came Jurate reminding me that I had this. That I was gonna do great, and yeah – I would mess up – but no one else would know it but the two of us. And that was okay!
And it went exactly that way. I was all over the place, talking twice as fast as I needed to. Carrying a trampoline, rolling a bag full of props and blankets and wraps and pillows and a big ole exercise ball in front of me. Not to mention my white foam board for reflecting the light and the bag of camera and lenses and speaker for playing gentle music.
I didn’t get all the shots I wanted. I didn’t do all the poses I wanted to do. I even forgot to grab my macro lens for those sweet, sweet baby feet. But Jurate helped me remember the important shots.
“Get baby comfy, then take a shot. Then fix the pose.”
“Lower. LOWER! It’s not always about full body shots.”
At the end of the two hours, I told the parents I wanted to do some lifestyle photography with all three of them. This is more freestyle than a studio – where we use the home as the setting and make the images feel more lived in than posed. It was at this point that Jurate told me I could do the rest myself.
I’m pretty sure I begged her to stay. But she was having none of that. So, for the last thirty minutes (and another thirty minutes of removing the hodgepodge of wraps and props from the floor) I was on my own. Looking back, I definitely learned a few hard lessons. Find the right background before placing the subject. We had a few awkward shuffles, and still some of my backgrounds must be heavily modified because of things I didn’t spot during the shoot. The diaper can stay on, but make sure you cover it with the baby’s legs. Otherwise, it won’t always be the most professional-looking photo. I made mistakes, and I will learn from them.
The entire time, I listened to the baby’s mama talk about her experience with pre-eclampsia days before the shoot. When she had originally said she was in the hospital, I offered to help and even push back the shoot another week if needed. She was adamant that she would do this. And I respected her wishes and offered support wherever I could. Those days were so painful and hard for her, and I was so astonished at the magnitude of her strength and resolve. Near the end, I gave her just a brief overview of my own experience, and we shared pained smiles and a sense of grace. She understood then what I was trying to convey – we were some pretty badass women.
As I drove away from that shoot, my heart was soaring in a way I had never truly experienced before. I was so elated at what I had just done that I was almost dizzy from it. It was as though something inside me just…clicked. This was it. This was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be the person who could go anywhere and help new parents celebrate the life that they just brought into the world. I wanted to be the person who could help ease that anxiety that I felt with my son. To hear their story and ease their pain by sharing a little of mine.
Photography is an amazing career for anyone with an artistic view of the world, and if we take the time to learn all we can about the fields we want to go into, it can be a lucrative one as well. For a military spouse who is also a stay-at-home mom, it can go where we go - even to the other side of the world. It can have the hours that we need. And all we need to get started is a camera and a dream.
If you enjoyed this story and want to continue to follow along, be sure to follow my Facebook page for more. If you would like to follow my photography career and see my work as it's completed, you can find me on Facebook at Wickerwood Photography. Until next time, happy reading.
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