Oh, hey there! I wanted to take a few minutes to introduce myself, and tell you a little bit about me, a photographer in Baton Rouge.
Photo cred: Katie Hoffpauir
It feels a little awkward, if I’m honest, but it’s kind of important that you know who I am, right? So, you and me–we’re going to soldier through this together. I promise to be mostly entertaining, and only a little bit long-winded.
And as a bonus for sticking with me: there will be memes.
Okay, so: Onto the basics!
I’m a Louisiana girl, born and raised. I grew up in St. Gabriel, a small town outside of Baton Rouge. It was country living, y’all. I’m talking pick-your-blackberries-and-make-a-cobbler-out-of-them-yourself kinda country. We raised horses, and fished in what was basically our back yard, and I pretty much lived with a constant case of poison ivy with all of the tree-climbing I did in those days.
I got married when I was nineteen (OMG, that seems SO YOUNG, now), and moved to Baton Rouge with my husband and my bonus kid Kyle. He was a great kid, and still is. If I’ve ever been angry with him about anything, it’s for giving me a completely unrealistic expectation of what raising our other two boys would be like.
(Way to go, Kyle. Thanks for being a good kid and MAKING EVERYTHING AFTER YOU SEEM SO MUCH HARDER).
This is the entirely-too-grown Kyle, with his little brother. Everybody say hiiiiiii, Kyle!
We had two more children together, that long-suffering husband of mine and I. Colin came along first, and then Cole followed nineteen months later.
Cole was the catalyst for my photography career, and is a big reason as to why I do what I do. When he was two, he was diagnosed with autism. We realized pretty quickly that posed photographs were just not an option for him. So, I figured that the only way I was going to have good photographs of him would be to learn to take them myself.
I learned something interesting while photographing him, though. With no choice but to photograph him in the moment, just as he was…well, he was just happier. And I enjoyed the photographs more, because I could tell how much more relaxed he was.
Cue the moment of epiphany, and the launch of my career as a Baton Rouge photographer.
From that point, I was determined to create images that mattered, in a way that was fun for the people in them. I wanted to document the beauty of the human experience, and make photos that made the viewer feel something.
“Pretty”, after all, is easy.
What’s more difficult is documenting people exactly how they are, in a way that tells you everything you need to know about them as people. Creating art from photographs, and realizing that each photo needs to be as unique as the people in it.
I get asked all of the time what my favorite thing to photograph is. I’m a wedding photographer. I’m a birth photographer. And I’m a family photographer. I know that when people ask this question, they want to know which of those is my favorite.
But the answer to that question is that my favorite thing to photograph is emotion. Full stop.
Weddings, birth and family all are experiences which are so full of emotion, of all different kinds. Tears, laughter, meltdowns – it’s all part of our story, of who we are.
Everything that I photograph is a different challenge, and I am driven to be my clients’ storyteller–regardless of what is in front of my lens.
Who are they? I think. What matters to them? How do I make their children, and their children’s children, remember who they really were?
So, that’s me, folks.
I’m a Baton Rouge photographer. I drink too much coffee, eat too much cake, and swear a little too much. I love getting lost in a good book, believe fiercely in the power of kindness, and have embarrassed myself a time or two due to a poorly-timed “that’s what she said” joke. And I love what I do more than is probably reasonable.
To find out more weird things about me (including my most ridiculous of phobias), CLICK HERE.
And now, here’s one of my all-time favorite The Office memes.
For posterity. Not because I’ve actually ever hit anyone with my car.
Photo credit for these go out to the phenomenal Julie Verlinden Photography and Tyler Wirken
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