When I was a young girl I purchased a camera using a gift card I had won in school from an art contest. This was the beginning of my love for photography. I took as many pictures as I could and I loved to experiment with capturing life. At some point though as I was growing up I began to hate myself. To hate how I looked and to really lose my appreciation for the beauty that each one of us holds, especially my beauty. Soon, I avoided a camera like the plague and I assumed everyone else did too. Thus ended my photography enjoyment. Tragic right?!
Fast forward to 2009. In September of that year some of my sisters and I ended up going on vacation to fulfill a promise and spend time with an amazing friend. Despite the hatred everyone had for being on camera, hey, we were on vacation so pictures commenced. We had such a wonderful time and those memories are something I will cherish forever, you see, a week later after returning home, one of my sisters past away suddenly. If we hadn't taken that vacation we would have very little pictures of her before she passed away. She hated getting her picture taken. I'm forever grateful that the Lord prompted us to go on that vacation. My gratitude for cameras and pictures began to change at that point.
Skip another few years forward to a moment when I was talking to my niece about body image. That was an incredible moment that I will be forever grateful for. That was when she introduced me to the website: beautyredefined.net and my attitude started to change. I started to view myself as beautiful. I started to see beyond the physical obsession for perfection and saw the flaws as something positive that made me unique and was a part of my beauty.
Life was changing.
Then in November of 2014 I finally decided to take a leap and purchase another camera. One that I could learn from and if nothing else, create as many memories as I could while I had them. This was picking up an old desire to express myself through a creative mode that was personal. Would that desire stay with me? Was it even still there? Originally I had hoped starting to take pictures again would help me see if I could capture what my mind and heart was feeling, but it has turned into a huge desire to love myself as well. I started out just wanting to take fabulous pictures and learn the 'tricks of the trade'. In the process though, these two worlds have collided and now I have another desire to 'Post the Real'. Perhaps maybe I could do some good with this here hobby!
So with that back story in mind, here are some of the first pictures I took with my camera, edit free. Enjoy!
