Hello and welcome to my first blog post at SBS Photography!
I figured I would use this post to introduce myself and tell you a little more about how SBS Photography came to be.
For those of you I haven't had the privilege of meeting yet, my name is Stephanie and I am the girl behind the lens at SBS Photography. In addition to my work as a photographer, I am also a full time middle school science teacher, a coach and a mom to the cutest one year old little girl, and three year old pup.
So how did I decide to start SBS Photography? It was completely accidental! Back in 2014 my husband and I added our pup Roo to our little family. Roo is a cavachon (which essentially means he looks like a little muppet). He would do the cutest things, and I quickly found myself with a iCloud full of pictures and no room left on my phone to support Roo's newest adventures. After Christmas I decided to buy myself a gift, a Nikon D3200 camera. I figured, at the very least it would save some space on my phone (you know so I could continue my marathon game of Candy Crush). I had dabbled in photography in high school as my high school's Arts and Entertainment Editor for our newspaper, but really didn't know much. I turned to Pinterest to learn how to use the basic features of my camera. Once learning what all these new buttons and terms meant, I set my sights on mastering manual on my camera. Being a science teacher I know the best way to learn is through inquiry, trial and error! So I gave myself a challenge, start a 365 day photo challenge. I came up with my own list of themes and set out to capture one "good" picture a day, trying to add in the different skills and concepts I was reading about nightly on different blogs.
After a few weeks of practicing and posting in my album on facebook, people started noticing my work and asking me if I was interested in using them for some of my photos. I was so excited to take my first "model" set of pictures with one of my oldest friends and her newborn son. We decided to do a "Mommy and Me" session, as he was a month old and she didn't have a ton of pictures with him alone. I quickly looked online for some inspiration, drove down to visit and took my first set of pictures! We decided that I would capture as many sessions from his first year as I could which gave me some great first images for my portfolio.
Once summer vacation started, I knew I wanted to practice more and see if this was a business I could really get into over time. I launched my Facebook business page after painstakingly deciding on a name and picking out pictures for my portfolio. I didn't get a lot of bites for people looking to model for me, but I didn't give up. I started looking online for little jobs, and continued to practice new and exciting skills. Later that summer I got my first real photography job!
Over the last two years I have slowly been building up my business. I've taken opportunities to photograph different types of sessions, and have started participating in online workshops to hone my skills especially in newborn and maternity photography (two of my favorite areas). When my daughter was born last March I took a six month maternity leave, where I focused on capturing as many pictures of her as I could. By the time August rolled around, my five month old daughter was already getting sick of being my sole model, and I knew it was time to get back into photographing others.
My goal for this year is to continue to slowly build up my business, work with new clients and continue to offer exceptional service to the clients that I do work with. I know how important these sessions and images are to them, and I feel so lucky to be involved in these special moments in their lives.
So there you have it, my story in a blog post. Hopefully I can find the time to update these more regularly. Until next time---thanks for stopping by! --Steph
#SBSPhotographyCT #CTphotographer #CTMaternityPhotographer #CTNewbornPhotographer #CTFamilyPhotographer
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