BRENDA THOMPSON PHOTOGRAPHY

    I take LOTS of pictures. I always have. I took selfies before selfies were cool. I've always been around the world of photography. When did it start? It started the second I was born. I'M NOT KIDDING! My mother snuck a camera into the delivery room  (which was against the rules) and took photos of me seconds after my arrival into this world. She didn't stop there. She ALWAYS had a camera in her hands, and I was always on the other side of it. Well, most of the time. 

    I don't know when it happened, but at some point I was old enough to handle a camera myself. Was it my eighth birthday, my tenth? Heck, I don't know. I just remember staging my room and taking photographs of my cross-dressed pets with makeshift backdrops as a child. I remember demanding that I had black and white film and begging for my own lightroom. I'd love to tell the story that this magical moment happened when I discovered that I wanted to be a photographer, but that moment was an evolution. I just remember always having a camera and always doing what my mom did - snap!

    Here's the moral of this story, I love it. I love looking through the virtual frame of my camera and seeing that shot - that million dollar moment that's going on your wall. I sometimes laugh when I take that shot. I've been stopped mid-session and asked, "Why are you laughing at me?" NO! I'm never laughing at a client! It's just breath-taking at times! When I'm in my moment, our moment, and I am so happy because I know you're going to be so happy, I literally burst out with joy! It's an emotion that overtakes me and makes me smile out loud. (And if you're not happy because of a pimple or fly-away hair, Photoshop will make us happy, but that's another story altogether!)

    Just know this: I can't put my camera down. I've tried, but it's a part of me. It's an extension of who I am. Sometimes I wonder what life would be like without my camera, but I hope to never know.

   That's my story of my photographing self, and I'm sticking to it. :)