Why I Chose Wedding Photography & Filmmaking
I didn't always want to photograph and film weddings for a living. As so many young people are doing nowadays, I spent a lot of my time thinking, praying, and researching to decide what I wanted my career to be. For a long time when I was younger I wanted to be a YouTuber for a living and make videos of me playing Minecraft. I tried it for some years and made a proud $100, but as I got older, I realized that wasn't exactly the life I wanted to live. Despite not wanting to work at a desk constantly and be stuck in a strict 9-5 work schedule, I decided to try out the business world and get a degree in fields such as finance and data analytics. However, as time went on, I knew that also wasn't the path for me.
During my consideration, I picked up my moms old camera. I had played around with photography on my phone before and learned some techniques, but this was my first time really trying photography. I quickly fell in love, and decided to buy a nicer camera that I could call my own. After trying out a few different cameras, I finally found the one to start my journey with.
Quite soon into my time learning photography, I really started to consider the possibility of going all in and trying to make it my career. Due to my previous content creation endeavors, it wasn't too foreign of an idea to create things for a living. I always liked making things. I made YouTube videos about rainbow loom bracelets and video games. I drew concepts for cars I thought would look cool. I took toy cars apart and put them back together. I did all this because I like to make stuff, but until photography, I was never sure what form of creating things I would enjoy doing as a job. Alongside photography, I also love the art of filmmaking to tell stories. I was able to learn videography skills quickly, and because of my previous YouTube endeavors, I was already quite proficient in video editing.
I dabbled in different forms of photography, but ultimately landed on weddings for two reasons. One reason was that wedding photography seemed like a much more realistic career than other photography jobs. My second reason was that I love weddings because of how great they are to be at and because marriage is a symbol of Christ and the church, and to be able to capture that unity would be a privilege. I'm incredibly grateful to God for the gifts He has given me and for allowing me to have this opportunity!
Image from Hannah & Parker's Wedding!