Dreaming // Portland Photographers.

When you were little did people ever ask you what you wanted to be one day? Most likely the answer is yes. And most likely you said something silly, not realistic; and then you grow up and realize you must make money and to be successful means to make a certain amount of money.

I’m pretty sure I wanted to be a teacher, and then I wanted to be a marine biologist. (I wanted to work at sea world, and now that i’m older I won’t even take my non existent kids there // but thats for another day) Anyways, when I started doing photography, I had a few people tell me it wasn’t a real job, and that I needed to get all the normal adult things. Insurance. Money. Stability. 401K. I know they were only telling me these things out of love. They only wanted the best for me, and they still do. But when does our person go from dreaming like a 5 year old to being a “logical” adult that is only worried about those certain things? When exactly does that happen?

I feel like I never wanted a real grown up job, or a 9-5 job really.. but I wasn’t sure what that looked like. So when I quit my job in September and took this leap of faith into the great abyss of photography and self employment I wasn’t sure what to expect. I didn’t know how we would pay our bills, or how the weddings would come. And then they just did, and they are.

We have some big grown up things going on right now in our lives, you know the things that you probably shouldn’t be doing while being a new self employed person? Well, we are doing it. We are stepping out in faith, and believing that being an artist is just as important and just as adult as the accountant/teacher/lawyer/nurse. We believe in what we do, we know that we are working as hard as we can. It looks like our job is so fun and so easy, and it is fun but it certainly isn’t easy. This whole thing is a journey, and I’ve never felt more adult in my life then when I stepped out and started this journey.

All this is to say. This photography thing, this isn’t just a job. This is my heart. This is my soul. And because we work hard at it, it will work. People are crazy enough to hire us (and thanks to all that have!) and crazy enough to believe in us. We believe that we have one life, and at the end I plan not to wish that I just followed my heart. I want to look back and regret nothing, even if it was different or hard.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us, hired us, believed in us, recommended us. We still need it. We still have big dreams. We still are trying to Inspire Change, and change the world through our photography.  And if you’ve got a dream that isn’t so traditional, try it. I promise you won’t be disappointed. Lets all support the artist in each other. And know that no dream is to big.

Find someone who inspires you, who believes in you, and who lets you dream big. My person is now in heaven, but her heart is still in me. I can feel her every day that I follow my dreams.