She's the reason....

I got into photography.  For those that don't know, Lillian was born premature at 32 weeks.  The moment that she arrived, I felt the need to capture everything during her stay in the NICU.  My digital Kodak camera, knitting needles and a book accompanied me every day that I went to the hospital for my daily visit.  From her first bottle feeding, to her first test in her carseat to see if she could come home........these are the images I cherish most.  When I look back now at those images, I'm thankful for the experience we had with the hospital staff and consider that we were one of the lucky ones since Lilly was one of the larger babies at 3lbs.  What means even more to me is the fact that these imperfect, unprofessional images continue to touch my heart each time I look at one of them.  This is what I love most about photographs.......the emotions that each one brings.  Lillian came home after a month in the NICU and from that point on, my love for photography was ignited.  I took countless pictures of Lillian, learning little things along the way and getting pointers from my dad who's a photographer as well.  Then Lillian dropped my camera early last year.  When it came time to replace my trusty Kodak, I decided to switch to Nikon and a new world was opened up to me.  From that point on, I've been learning new things and building my own style.  I took a couple of classes at Pink Ink Studios from Andie which helped immensely and I started to read a lot more.  All along the way, Lillian has been my perfect little model.  And now with the business side of things starting to dwindle down, I can start advertising and handing out my business cards (which should be arriving tomorrow......yay!!!)  and capturing some new souls!  Anyways, I just thought that I'd share my journey towards photography and the reason I was drawn to it!