Amazing

I was post processing some photos the other day and started thinking about the fact that I own my own business doing something I love.  I could not have imagined we would have so much business in our first year of existence.  It's been fun, exciting, scary, tiring, but above all rewarding.  One of my favorite things these days is to see the comments people leave for my clients.  Just the sheer joy and emotion in the exchange between clients and their friends and family is so amazing.

I really can only thank God for how things have turned out.  For those that don't know, I was doing photography for fun until one day the other church photographers (the Reddicks) asked me to help shoot COEBA (Conference on Evangelizing Black America).  From there, everything took off! I did our Pastor's Christmas cards and then on Jan 2, 2010 we shot our first wedding.  All of our business has been word of mouth.  Every client we have has been referred by a friend, through church friends or folks we've met at work.

I think what has helped Linda and I is the fact that we got married only 2 years ago so we remember a lot of what goes on in a wedding and what memories have really etched themselves into our minds and hearts.  Armed with that experience and our desire to do everything we can to make sure our clients love their photos, we have been able to turn my dream into a reality.  Every wedding brings a new challenge, new faces, and most importantly, new memories. 

Second to Jesus, Linda has been the biggest reason that my dream has become successful.  She gives up her Saturdays and other days when she could easily be relaxing or hanging out with friends to be my assistant and second shooter.  She also provides a dose of reality and even models for me on occasion.  For instance, this past Friday she accompanied me to church (I needed a really large space - Thanks Brother Tibbs for letting us in!) to pose while I experimented with my new softbox and grid.  She was such a trooper that she stayed upright while falling asleep (to be fair, she had gotten up at 5am that day).  Linda is the love of my life and God really has provided me the best wife I could ever ask for.  As I type right now, she is cleaning up from dinner (after making it), making our lunch and dinner for tomorrow, and loading a new batch of laundry. She's doing all this so that I can focus on our business.  If that's not love, I don't know what is. 

I always told myself when I first got to know Linda that I wanted to marry her.  Little did I know our marriage would be as amazing as it has been (and will continue to be). 

So I started my post talking about how amazing my photography business journey has been and ended it talking about how amazing my wife is.  Two different topics?  No way, it makes perfect sense.