So today the journey begins, the journey to finding my eye, my style, the reason why I love to photograph things, why I am rarely happy with what I have done and why I am less confident about my work than others tell me I should be. I am excited to take these first steps, so let's begin.

Thinking on why I take photographs, I feel I have a desire to capture something that has caught my eye, something that has awed me, or made my heart race or intrigued me. I want to capture that feeling, to take it with me, to ensure I don't forget the smells, the sounds, the feelings that I had when I saw this thing or this place. And yet sometimes I take the shot and it fails to carry with it the sense I wanted it to. This is what I want to develop more. I have to admit I once took photos simply for me, shots of things and places I loved or spotted and never wanted to forget. Some places and things I wanted to share with my family. Now since I have begun to blog and have had thoughts of having a slightly more commercial aspect to my work I have lost some of the passion and the delight I once had. I feel like I spend so much time on this hobby, I don't work and my husband has always encouraged and supported anything I have enjoyed doing. Yet now that we are empty nesters I feel like I should somehow be contributing to the income we have. I have begun to take photos and then look at them with thoughts of selling them some how some where. I don't like that at all. It has taken the joy and the simplicity out of photography for me. So I have to take a step back I think and just love what I do again, forget the selling aspect and just get back to grass roots again.

I really don't like shooting pictures of people much, at least not portrait style shots, I much prefer the candid style of taking people photos. I don't like arranging people in photos, it makes me feel bossy and annoying. I prefer flowers, macro anything, and I love doorways, gates and lane ways, they make me wonder where they lead, who lives there, what goes on behind those doors.