Sweet Pickle Pictures » Providing family, child, newborn, maternity and studio photography for Manhattan, Kansas and the surrounding areas.

A post like this has been swimming around in my head for some time. So here I am right smack in the middle of my busy season – perfect time to sit down and write it I guess, right? Haha! Eventually I would like to make this part of my ‘about me’ page because I want my clients to know me, and know what I’m all about.

Two years ago I made a monumental purchase – a DSLR. It wasn’t anything fancy, just an entry level camera body and two kit lenses that I knew nothing about, but it was the best money I’ve every spent (definitely not the last money I ever spent!) Just 7 months prior to that I went from a hard working, full time nurse to a stay-at-home-mom. To say that was unexpected is an understatement of sorts. I never saw myself choosing that path, in fact I was pretty adamantly against that idea until I actually had a child of my own and that became the best decision for me and for him. While I loved my new ‘career’ I felt something was missing. I think every Mom can relate to these next sentiments – I needed something for ME. Something to remind me that I had interests and passions outside of my home and my son. Photography had been something I had loved since grade school. It was safe to say that I was ALWAYS the girl with the camera, even if that camera was a plastic disposable.  So here I was at home all day with ample time and an adorable subject – why not give it a REAL try?

The rest, as they say, is history. I never intended to have my own business, but somewhere along the way I changed my mind. I loved the challenge of photographing others, and others seemed to like having me photograph them. It was a very natural progression and led me to doing something that, while stressful at times, makes me so literally GIDDY that I sometimes wonder how in the heck I got here. It has been a fast and furious progression that if nothing else attests to just how much I truly enjoy what I do.

During the early days of my photography journey, I photographed anything and everything I could get my hands on. I wanted to try EVERYTHING – and I did for the most part, but what I kept coming back to were families and children. Were they the easiest? Heck no. Any photographer out there will tell you how challenging they are, but there was something about capturing those images that made me feel happier and more accomplished than any other. I was giving something to families that I would want for myself. For MY family. Sure, family photography is less glamorous than weddings, and children don’t stay still like a high school senior would and allow you to pose them or get the lighting just right. In fact, you can probably expect a million and a half things to NOT go according to plan, but at the end of the day I could relate to those families more than any other clients.  I know exactly what it feels like to nail the perfect picture of my son just being HIM. I know how important it is to capture a point in time that is as fleeting as childhood or how important it is to remember life as it is RIGHT NOW. I get it, and I will do everything I can to give that to every family I work with, because I know hard it is to find someone that GETS it. I get that your children are not perfect angels all the time and I don’t expect them to be. I also get that they probably won’t want to have a whole lot to do with getting their photo taken. I’m a mom, trust me…I get ALL of it. And I’m not scared!

So, does this mean I will never shoot a wedding or a high school senior? I wouldn’t say that, but I have finally found my niche, and I intend to focus the bulk of my time and energy on not only being good at it, but being GREAT at it. You shouldn’t have to settle for a photographer that is less than excited about the idea of  working with your rambunctious 2-year-old or your family of six. I might not nail every shot, but I can promise you that we are going to try our best, and we’re going to have fun doing it. I want you to have the same feeling that I do every time I get that perfect photo of my son, and I want to put images on your wall that make you smile every time you walk past them. I want you to know that even when your shoot didn’t seem to go according to plan, that you are going to still walk away with some great images of your family. I want to watch your children grow up in front of my lens, and continue to grow and learn in my photography skills so that I can better capture them at their best (or their worst!)  I don’t need to be every photographer, but I would like to be YOUR photographer. I love what I do, and I hope it shows!