This is Us

My love for photography was birthed my junior year of college when I received my first DSLR for Christmas, a Nikon D40x.  I was supposed to head to Australia the following summer for study abroad so my parents wanted to make sure I had an awesome camera to document my experience.  Up to that point, I had only shot with a point and shoot digital camera and my mom’s old film Minolta- (don’t judge!  It made for awesome prom pictures and random photo shoots of my friends in high school!).  After basically taking pictures of anything and everything, I realized that photography was an avenue of art that I absolutely loved.  **Side note: The Australia trip was cancelled…boooooo….but Joe and I started dating that summer so if I would have gone, I don’t know what would have happened between he and I.  It was meant to be!

As I finished college, a few friends asked me to take pictures of them, which I was SO excited to do.  There is just something special about helping create a memory with people you love!  Soon I moved back home and was working as a part time music teacher.  (My college degree is in music education and I’m currently teaching music full time with all my sweet K-5 elementary peeps! *Side note: All music teachers hate the recorder and if they tell you otherwise…they’re lying.) I love teaching, but my love for photography continued to grow and grow.  I was shooting for friends and family and then booked my first wedding.  They were the sweetest couple and it was such a fun learning experience.  It definitely birthed my love for wedding photography.  I invested in my gear and moved up to the Nikon D7000, got some nice lenses and watched a lot of Youtube on how to be a better photographer.

A few years later, Joe and I got married.  He is amazing.  A wonderful musician, gifted graphic designer, video editor, photographer, and phenomenal worship leader.  (Fun fact: We met through his brother who I led worship with at youth camp in high school.  Joe and I were always friends and then fell in love singing together at a graduation service.  I’ll dedicate another blog post to our love story later!)  We were leading worship and he was on staff at a church in Atlanta.    It’s literally SO fulfilling and something we love to do together.  Because of all of our different staff positions and traveling dates, I had to take a step back from photography.  I loved it, but professionally it was hard to maintain with our schedule.  Once we got pregnant with our amazing son, Rhodes, I took a legitimate hiatus for about two and half years.

Fast forward to the summer of 2017.  We had a crazy few years and went back to traveling full time and were prayerfully considering what this next phase of life was going to look like.  I started taking pictures again for some family friends and my love and passion was reignited.  Enter Amy & Jordan Demos.  I randomly saw a Facebook ad for a free webinar for shooting and editing.  Being a teacher, I am a huge advocate for being a lifelong learner and growing your brain.  I had never officially taken any photography courses and was totally self taught (thanks Youtube).  I then began to stalk them and all their work and fell in love with everything they were doing.  I felt such a connection because they started as teachers and pursued their passions.  It definitely gave me the “Hey, I think I can do this too!” feeling.  I completed their course faster than binge watching “LOST” on Netflix and hopped to it.  Joe saw my passion grow exponentially in about a span of 2 weeks.  I was super proud of the pictures I was taking and all that I was accomplishing.  He took the course and his photography passion grew as well.  We saved our money, sold some musical gear, and made the switch from Nikon to Canon. (It’s a total preference thing, but I will say I LOVE it!). We invested and purchased a 5d Mark IV and we couldn’t be happier.  From there we officially launched J&C Creative Co. and it’s a scary but super worth it feeling.

We are so in love with each other, our clients, photography, being creative, and being together.  We are always working to shoot better, communicate better, love better – we love growing in this field together.  May I always remember to love and embrace it’s ups and downs, learn from our mistakes, celebrate our victories, and keep our focus on what’s important – the Lord and each other. Here’s to this next season.

Thanks for reading!  Anything stick out to you?  Do you have a passion that you are wanting to pursue?  Tell us in the comments below! We’d love to hear them!

All the best,

Christian