Last May, when I was home on maternity leave, I decided to get back into photography.

After taking a few years off and only photographing friends and family I wanted to get back out there and start working with other people. When I was in college social media wasn’t as big a deal as it is now. I didn’t realize just how many photographers were in my area until I decided to get back in the game. I also didn’t realize how much had changed in the photography world.

Since college ended I hadn’t kept up with photo editing and camera updates. It was like starting all over. Lightroom wasn’t a thing when I was in school. I had a very outdated Nikon DSLR. So, I just want to say, thank goodness for YouTube. I started to watch videos on how to use Lightroom, creating presets, changes to Photoshop, and I started to research new cameras.

In the last year I have taken family, children, maternity and wedding photos for others. It has allowed me to meet new people and reconnect with old friends I haven’t seen in years. It has given me an outlet and a reason to pick up the camera more often and be creative.

Something I really love about all the changes and the increased love of photos, because of social media, are all the different styles of editing and images. You have photographers that have light and airy images and others with dark and moody editing styles. You have photographers that specifically work with infants, others that are only wedding photographers.

Then, you have photographers that just want to take images of food and flood Instagram with pictures of their lunches. I love it. Social media has changed the face of photography. I love picking a random hashtag and scrolling through pictures just to see what people are posting. I could look at pictures of coffee for hours. Seriously. Pictures of peoples dogs…all day. I just love pictures and I cannot wait to continue to take pictures. Regardless if its for others or just of my daily Starbucks latte.