i am a photographer!

i'm having a blast taking photos this summer.  people at work have asked me how i started doing photography, and here's the long answer:

i learned photography as a kid, in elementary school. i was lucky to have a 6th grade teacher who taught me to use a dark room. and my dad was into photography, at one point he built his own darkroom and he'd teach me stuff. 

 then i got into band and music. i still took pics. my senior year a friend's dad saw my photos and called his friend at BP downtown to tell him about me. the guy was in charge of commercial photography for BP. i brought him some of my pics and he told me i had a great eye for composition and portraits. he said he would not hire me to do commercial work, because it's boring and tedious and not creative. he even let me come back to watch a photo shoot for some new product. i was like, oh god, no thanks! so i thanked him for showing me that. 

 in college i tried to major in photography, but the department was a joke. i took photography 101 and the teacher was so bad, i ended up teaching everyone in the class how to use their cameras. then they closed the department down. 

 i did some weddings and hated it, so i gave up on making money doing photography. and it used to be expensive, buying film and paying to have things developed. and i was always broke. then my dad came to columbus and made me give him his camera back, the one i'd been using since i went to OSU. god i was so pissed at him! LOL...

so years went by, and it wasn't until i borrowed my sister's digital camera that i saw how i could shoot a ton of photos, experiement, because once you buy the camera, the rest is free!

i'm so excited to try and do photography professionally.  i mean, it can't hurt to try.  right? 

here's an album of pics i've taken around cleveland the last few months.