I am blessed. Very very very very blessed. I have a wonderful family, wonderful children, a loving husband, and a passion for photography that brings me a lot of joy. And I just got even more blessed by being the recipient of an incredibly generous gift.

My mom’s friend recently saw a blog post about my mom. If you missed it, you can read it HERE. Well, he liked what he saw and thought I had a good eye and ability to capture true emotion.  SUCH a compliment and something I definitely strive for in my images.  Well, this guy liked it so much, he decided to give me his studio lights that he no longer uses.  He gave me 3 alien bees (those are lights), 3 light stands, a case to carry all the lights, a backdrop stand, triggers, lots of backdrops, and a new belief in the kindness and generosity of mankind.  I was floored, honored, and a bit scared that I wouldn’t be able to do anything very special with these lights.

I have been a natural light girl.  Only.  I didn’t even own a flash until very recently and still need to tackle how to use that thing.  What was a natural light photographer going to do with studio lights?

Well, I certainly didn’t want to disappoint the guy by not putting the lights to work, so I got started.

And here we have it.  My first image.  And can you believe it?  It’s my OPUS.

Bwahahahhaaaaaaaaa!!!!  Get it?  My Opus?  Teeeee heeeeee heeeee…..  There’s problems with this picture, for sure.  The first one being that my shutter speed was too high and I didn’t even expose the bottom half of the image, hence the loss of Opus’ feet.  But, I still love it.  Cuz it’s my first picture.

And then, later in that session, I got this of my husband.  My hunkahunka husband. 

This was gonna be fun.

Next try, I got close to what I wanted, but not exactly.  Note to self: black stool on black background makes child float.

So, I tried again.  BINGO!

And, so the journey has begun.  I still have a lot to learn, but I am determined to make my friend’s mom proud.

I am determined to not waste the gift.

None of us should waste the gift.  Whatever that gift may be.

And if I can not waste the gift at the same time that I have some fun, then hey, I’m doing something right.