My love for photography began when I was around 8 years old. I loved to pick up my parents camera, whether it be a point and shoot or a polaroid, and take pictures of places we were visiting. When I was 9 years old, my brother bought me my first camera, a Kodak VR 35 K10. My brother was in the Air Force, so we traveled during the summers to visit where he was stationed at. I loved taking pictures of all the states we would pass through, we traveled by car. When school would start back up I would bring in the pictures I had taken and would share them with all of my friends. I had a few teachers over the years that would tell me the same thing, “you should take up photography when you are older”. When the time came, my life had taken a different path and I did not listen to their wisdom. Later in life, my husband and I started traveling. Once again that old feeling came back and I wanted to capture what we were seeing to share with friends and family back home. I went out and bought a point and shoot camera to take with us on these trips. After sharing what we had seen, I was hearing the same message again, you should go into photography. I listened this time and enrolled in some online classes. It wasn’t easy. I struggled with the first few set of lessons and thought everyone throughout the years were wrong. Then the day came where I had to turn in a final project that included taking everything I had learned and putting that information into a subject of my choice. The feedback and grade I received from my teacher shocked me. He said “ I didn’t think you were grasping the concepts of the lessons but when you are allowed to take that information and do your own thing you blow me away”. The rest of my classes went on in the same fashion but always ended with the same reaction from my teacher. What we both discovered about me is that I can’t see what people want me to see, I can only see what I see.