Bio
I won't bore you with stories of my first camera, or how much I love photography. What I will say is that I learned and refined the skills that serve me so well with weddings, by working as a newsphotographer for three small town newspapers.
Small town papers have their own unique style and voice. In a small town, news photographers are known by most if not all of the townsfolk. We're popular, because we have a camera, and the ability to put someone's picture in the paper. Every Friday, I'd search the fans at the high school ball games for the cute kid, or fun cheerleader, that I could photograph for a great feature photo, to add to the coverage of the game.
The most enjoyable part of being a news photographer was the daily search for the feature of the day: a cute photo or series of photos of a little tike experiencing roller skates for the first time, or a man and his dog "porch-sittin" on a hot summer day. The people in those small towns were great folk to get to know. I've even been able to photograph the weddings of several of the kids, who's photos I took ten years earlier, while I was a newsphotographer.
But with the fun, comes the tragedy. Fatal accidents on the highways, barn and house fires, and other tragedies were great adreneline rushes, but these sad events wore me down emotionally after a few years of them.
After my wife's career brought our family back to central Indiana, I discovered that newspaper jobs were very scarce. I spent several years working for a friend at his portrait studio, and eventually left to bring my attention to weddings.
The positive energy of the wedding days feeds my own emotional state. Weddings are definately the happiest times of people's lives, and I love looking for the emotions and the details that make the day special. Weddings, as well as documenting the lives of the families I photograph after their weddings, are the fuel that keep me from pursuing a real job. Capturing the best times of people's lives is really the best job I can imaging.
A special thank you goes out to my friend Leann from LifeSpring Photography for the cool photo!