In the beginning....

While I'm going through my transformation to a different photography style, I decided I need to revisit my past.  Look at how far I've come since the beginning.

All I can say is WOW!  The beginning was not exceptionally pretty.

From 2005:

OK, so NOT terrible, right?  Right??

Definitely not excellent though.  But everyone starts somewhere.  That was my first real year in business.  My first couple of weddings.  I was still learning.  There is a quote, "Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson.  I think this is true.  No matter how many you have taken before, after another 10,000 photos you will be better.  I've rounded 10,000 photos a couple of times since 2005.

From 2006:

Better.  Definitely better.  More creative, to a point.

I had so many weddings in 2006.  In fact, one weekend I had two weddings.  One on Saturday, one on Sunday.  Strangely enough, same location.  It was fun.  Serious fun.  I loved being that busy.  I loved having so much to do.  I was creative, I was busy and I was having so much fun.

What do you think?  Did I improve?  After one short year, did my style seem to change at all?

Changing face of Cherished Photography

Over the last couple of years I've changed my focus slowly from Weddings and Family portraits over to a more artsy and edgy style.  It took awhile for me to wholly embrace this switchover.  Goodness knows that Weddings and family type portraits are money makers.  But truth be told, I just wasn't enjoying it as much as I would like.

When I first started Cherished Photography I actually enjoyed taking photos of weddings.  The dresses, the flowers, the kids; everything was magical.  Over the course of 9 years doing it, everything started to look the same.  I decided to take a step back and reanalyze my feelings about doing those events.  Had I become jaded from too many brides and fluffy dresses?  Or was it stagnation, doing the same poses and set ups over and over again?  Probably a combination of them both.

I did notice that towards the end I was doing the same exact photos for every wedding.  That is not the type of photography I wanted to be doing.  I want to be doing fun things.  Pushing the envelope type things.  Things that I can't post on Facebook.  Things that get people talking.  I want to have FUN.

So, towards that end, the website came down.  I decided not to pursue weddings at all, anymore.  (Maybe someone can talk me into it, but it will be only for certain special people.)  I decided to go out and take photos that make me happy.  Hopefully other people will like them also.  If not, too bad, at least I like them!

Welcome to the new blog and enjoy the pictures.

I'm going to start by posting some of my favorites and then move on to more recent and new photos.  Maybe everyone will see how the style has changed.  Maybe everyone will see the improvements I've made in technique, the journey I've taken to find my new style.  Please feel free to comment, critique and otherwise be involved.  I'd love it if everyone left some sort of comment.