It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This!!

It doesn't get any better than this.

Six years ago, if you would have told me that I would be a photographer, I probably would have laughed at you.

I'm a disabled veteran who has PTSD and have physical disabilities that I thought would inhibit me from even trying to pursue a career with photography. But like most of us, I have a very loving, caring supportive mother who would always tell me, through the very few cell phone pictures that I took, that I had a very photogenic way with looking at things and said that she would support me if I chose a career in photography.

It was a month later that my cousin Stephanie came out and told me about this learning program called Skillshare. It's a learning platform where you can virtually learn anything. I took a look at it; it seemed like a pretty cool way to learn photography. I signed up got a free month and then after that, it's $9.99. So there I was with this online learning platform. I type in photography. There must have been 10 pages of photography classes and workshops and assignments (just like a college class) that you can take. I dove in. I started taking some classes, saved up some money, and got my first camera, a Fuji fine point 300x. It was your basic point-and-click kind of camera. It did the job, I started taking more classes and going out and taking pictures and reading photography magazines. Within a month, not only could I, but my family, noticed a remarkable difference in my pictures.

Four years later, I opened up a photography studio and I have loved it ever since. Photography has given me an outlet to channel my PTSD where I have focus and everything else would just disappear. Since then, I have done many different photography niches. I took this picture of one of my friends who was a ring girl at a boxing event. She had this pose (I have upgraded my camera since then to a Canon rebel t7), and I set my ISO at 100 and aperture at at 1/1000 to capture this shot. It just spoke to me like, "Photography-life;" it doesn't get any better than this. When you love something that you do, it no longer becomes a job. I have loved it ever since.

I now live in Idaho Falls, ID, where I continue my love and passion for photography and gratefulness to the two most important people in my life, my mom and my cousin who got me started on this path.

I hope that whoever reads this finds the strength and courage in yourself. If you want to do something, research it enough on the internet until you have exhausted every means possible to find an answer to help you through whatever problems that you may be going through. It can't be worse than being a combat veteran who has seen everything on this Earth.