Why Don't You Take Some Pictures For Me?

We were sitting on the couch watching TV, I'm guessing something on the Sportsman's Channel and there was a woman shooting in the prone position (lying on your stomach) and the camera view was from behind her. This prompted my husband to suggest I take some sexy pictures for him, "like that". Eyebrows officially raised.

I get asked, often about how I got to today - building a boudoir business and taking pictures of smoking hot ladies in sexy lingerie. Truthfully I wasn't one of those kids born with a camera in their hand who was taking pictures from their first step. I did however, love playing with my parents old Kodak film camera. I couldn't tell you the number of film rolls I wasted. But even still, photographs were printed in 3.5x5" and usually stuffed in an album that would sit on the shelf and collect dust. The few photos we had were the "free" ones we got from the church directory picture sessions or from school picture days.

As I got older and cameras grew smaller I would take pictures of pretty much anything and hope that out of my 36 exposures a few would be in focus. It was the film version of point & shoot, or perhaps shoot & pray. I started collecting shelves and boxes of my photo adventures. Most are meaningless and crap by technical standards but that is where most of us start from. Rule of thirds? Proper exposure? What's that?

My first digital camera arrived in my life after my junior year of college. It was crazy expensive (by today's P&S price standards) and only 64 or maybe 128 MB card. Yes, MEGA, not GIGA. The card alone ran $60 or more, now you can buy a cheap camera for that. I took that camera with me to study abroad in Scotland where I took pictures of EVERYTHING. Hundreds and hundreds of pictures. I even printed most of them too. My apologies to anyone waiting behind me at the Wal-Mart Kodak printing thing.

Jumping ahead (or we will be here all day reading my rambling), photography fell by the wayside for me for a few years. I actually seriously started considering the idea of a business while photographing my husband mountain biking. That grew into my first business, Cactus Tri Photography, which focused on small running races. I found there was something cathartic about picture taking, capturing a moment in time for people and creating a lasting memory.

I did take those pictures for my husband (he still has them), they were not good. But it touched something in me - a desire and passion to learn more, to grow. It also opened a sense of confidence and empowerment for me. As time went on the photos improved, my skills sharpened. Knowing I can do that in a poorly lit bedroom with a remote timer, I wondered what I can do for someone else with elemental control? And One Two One Photography was born.

(The blog picture really is me. It's about 2.5 years old and among one of the first sets of images I took. If you ever want a challenge - try taking a photo of yourself remotely and try to remember where the focus is going to fall.)