A New Path

I have always loved taking pictures and picked up my first camera at the age of nine.  While I was snapping pictures of friends, my siblings and my travels, I had no idea the paths photography would lead me down.  My years as a runaway were not recorded.  There was no camera and eating was my main focus.  Survival.  I started snapping shots as my children arrived documenting their births, their school functions, their growth... working what ever jobs I could to survive.  Then in 2004 death and sadness would take over my life.  I picked up my camera and started shooting in a whole new light.  Literally.  It became a obsession.  Chasing the light.  I started shooting landscapes, flowers, buildings, sewing needles...whatever I could find to capture.  I had no desire to do it professionally at that time.  I finally worked up the courage to start photographing people and then weddings and earned a few dollars here and there.  My art started selling on line and in local studios.  People were writing and calling me.  They wanted to publish my work.  Me?  Still, what was my purpose?  Why did God put this camera in my hand?  I met many others with the same passion and made such great friends.  Normal happy and loving people.  Not the same as the people in my past.  They encouraged and supported me.  Strangers that were more loving than most members of family.  I have photographed cancer survivors, lost and homeless animals, our boys being shipped back home in coffins and somehow, I carry them in my heart now.  Now I have a new family.  I have a new purpose.  I have to make the world a little bit better of a place.  And so my journey continues.