Thoughts on Thursday: I am a photographer
In an effort to make my blogging a bit more regular (tried Metamucil…it didn’t help) I’ll be streamlining all my personal posts to appear on Thursday. So if you don’t give a hooey about photos and are here for random ramblings, profanity-laced story telling and vacation reminiscing, you’ll want to swing by for Thoughts on Thursday. I have much to catch up on. Vacation posts to finish… Haven’t even started blogging about our home-buying and projects… And Lord knows I have puppy stories! But we’ll start with some big news…
You guys.
I have news.
Major news.
This April marks the 4-year anniversary of the day husband and I took an afternoon off from work, drove around to half a dozen places, signed forms, paid money and did all the things you have to do to start a business.
It is the 4th birthday of Maggie Medema Photography. (Cheers! Clapping! Balloons! Fireworks!)
Four years ago, I asked my husband if he would mind if I took $300 out of our savings account and use it start a business.
$300.
Which wasn’t a small chunk of change at the time – 6 months after our wedding, 8 months after getting laid off from my first real job, 5 months after starting a brand new job that didn’t pay as well as the first one, which wasn’t very well either.
Husband said it was fine. I could take the money and he didn’t care if I ever paid it back. But I told him I would. I would make sure I didn’t loose our $300. I’d see if I could make it into a few more dollars.
And – I feel the need to say this – I didn’t just wake up the day before and decide to be a photographer. I never sat around wondering what I could do to make extra cash on the side. Or what kind of job might land me a work-from-home situation. I never saw another photographers work and thought, “I could do that.” I came to be a photographer through a series of random experiences and decisions.
The first decision came on August 11, 2004 – the day husband bought me my first digital camera.
And I decided again in October 2004, while working for the college newspaper at IVCC. Our staff photog wasn’t available and someone needed to photograph the men’s baseball team. That was the first time I picked up a DSLR.
I decided again the summer of 2005, when I borrowed that same DSLR and took family photos for my cousin’s family. I had no idea what I was doing. There was no Pinterest, photographers weren’t blogging yet. I just went and took photos that seemed natural to me. I decided – on that particular day – not because the photos were good but because of the way my counsins loved them.
I decided again, with my borrowed camera attached to my dad’s old tri-pod, taking photos of my future family-in-law before husband and I moved away for college.
I decided again, when I asked my mom if she thought it would be okay to tack an extra grand onto my senior-year student loan so I could buy my first real camera.
I decided again, my senior year at college when I opened a note from my parents that said “Dad wants you to use this money to buy that photo program.” That would have bought a lot of beer, ya’ll. But I bought my first copy of Photoshop.
I decided again when my mother-in-law died, too young, and I sat crying over the very photos I’d taken myself, with that borrowed camera, just two years earlier. That was when I really decided. And when I realized how serious of a responsibility this job is.
I decided again, the day I was half laid-off/half walked out on my first full-time job, determined that my livelihood would never again in someone else’s hands.
A few months after that I decided again, once and for all, in April of 2010 that this was it for me. Not a hobby. Not a convenient way to make extra cash. But a God-given vocation. A responsibility. A dream. A no-choice-but.
But, even decisions that are easy to make take time to develop. They take work. Hard work. Sixty-hours-a-week work. They take cash. They take confidence. Encouragement. Support. Faith. So much support. So much faith.
So for 4 years I paid my dues and I worked my ass off and I complained about it constantly. I tried to pray about it half as much as I complained but the complaining was easier. And the praying was mostly useless because I felt confident that my direction was well guided. I knew what I was meant to do, but I’m pretty sure God prefers you meet him halfway on these types of things; so I just kept working. And working. And while I worked, husband kept our lives together. He ran our house, made sure we had clean underwear, that we ate dinner most nights and that our friendships weren’t sacrificed by my constant drive to book more business, edit more photos, post more blogs. My parents nodded along in support, never flinching when I called sobbing because I couldn’t take it any more – the two jobs, the self-inflicted pressure, the inability to keep up, the fear of it not working.
And then, at some point, the light at the end of the tunnel started to shine a bit. The fear faded. The confidence grew. The hard work started to payoff. Finally, I looked around and realized that most of my ducks were in a row. Enough of my ducks were in a row.
I took some time to build up my nerve. I listened to good music. I read good words. I read The Good Word.
Then I waited to feel nervous. To feel terrified. To talk myself out of it.
But I didn’t.
So today, my friends, on the 4th birthday of my big dream, I am pleased to share with you that I have wrapped up my time at my day job.
The wait is over.
I’m a photographer.
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