Category: Photography

Documenting my progress as a photographer and showing off some of my favorite shots

On Dreams

Published by dee on September 21, 2012

When I was a kid, I dreamed of so many things I wanted to do when I “grew up”. The one that really stuck (at least through high school and early college) was that I wanted to cut hair and own my own beauty salon. I always wanted to own it. I wanted it to be mine.

Along the way, things changed (obviously) and that dream never came to fruition. I blame it all on the advanced accounting class I tried to take my freshman year of college. I grossly overestimated my ability to handle that class and dropped it after the second week. Then I changed my major from Business Management to Psychology. Oh, how I wish I could go back and tell my younger self what a stupid idea that was! (And I now do accounting on a daily basis for my full-time job!)

After I got my B.S. in Psychology, I went on and started on a Master’s of Social Work. One year into the program I decided I couldn’t finish it. One year of classes and more added college loans left me with no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I ended up in a temporary job that I have now been at for over 10 years.

Along the way I’ve dabbled in lots of different things. For a while I was convinced I could and would be a web designer, even though I had no background in design. I set up a web site and toyed with the idea of starting up a company. Then I had a baby and that whole idea fizzled out. It is a little hard to code on no sleep, with a crying baby in your lap.

The idea of wanting a business of my own never has gone away. It has stayed in the back of my mind for years, always as a dream, not a reality.

Then came photography. Photography has been a gradual journey for me. I have always loved taking pictures (as I can prove with the staged photos of my stuffed animals when I was a kid), but it wasn’t until I was finally able to afford my first SLR camera that I really pushed myself to learn about photography. I had no idea what an f-stop was, or ISO, or shutter speed. Little by little I figured it out and my love grew bigger than I ever imagined.

Last year I finally saw a little piece of my dream come true. I started my own business. I worked hard to figure out all the details and actually set it up as a legal business. Caleb threw a little bit of a wrench into my overall plan, but things are steadily growing. I’m learning a lot as I go along, including just how time consuming a little part-time business can be. I dream of it one day becoming full-time and being able to support my family doing something that I truly love. There is just no way to describe the feeling of joy it brings me when a client loves the photograph that I’ve poured my heart and soul into. It really is true that when you are doing what you love, it doesn’t feel like work at all.

I’ve got a long way to go to fulfill my dream, but the fact that I have started shows me that I do have it in me. I really believe that I will get there some day.

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If you would like to keep up with my photography journey, please visit and “like” my facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/deeperrinphotography. You can also follow the blog at http://www.deeperrinphotography.com, where I plan to be updating more frequently (soon!).

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Processing

Published by dee on October 4, 2011

Those of you who follow along on Facebook already know that we had a bit of excitement in our weekend. We headed out to Zach’s school carnival on Friday night and ended up with Hubby in the ER. Let’s just say it was quite the spectacle to watch a 260-pound man plow through a crowd of people while semi-unconscious. I’m still not exactly sure what happened as I was completely frozen until I saw him fall to the ground. He went about 10-15 feet, then fell. By the time I got to him, he was alert but couldn’t remember what had happened the few seconds before. People around us thought he was crazy, I was in shock, and the kids were about 100% freaked out.

My immediate reaction was to take him to the hospital, but he refused saying he felt okay. We let him sit for a while, but when he decided to go out and sit in the car I called my mom and told her I needed to take him to the ER. Fortunately, she wasn’t too far away and was able to come meet us. She agreed to drive him to the hospital so I could stay with the kids and let them enjoy the carnival a little bit. After a few games and some turns in the bounce houses, we went and met them at the hospital. The kids were very worried about Daddy, so they went in so they could see him for a few minutes before Grandma took them back to the house.

Once they got him back into a room and hooked him up to a bunch of monitors, we finally learned what was going on. The official diagnosis was SVT, or supraventricular tachycardia. Basically, he has an irregular heartbeat that occasionally speeds up really fast. This has been happening for a while, but it generally only lasts a few minutes and then goes back to normal. He has discussed it with his doctor before, but was simply told to drink lots of water and cut back on caffeine as dehydration can make this happen more frequently. He wasn’t overly concerned about it at the time, but after he blacked out and fell down it became a bit more of a concern.

While we were in the ER, his heartbeat continued to go up and down for several hours. He was given medication to help slow it down and once that kicked in it seemed to stabilize. His reward was being admitted for overnight observation. He met with the cardiologist Saturday morning, who gave him a prescription for heart medication (and a baby aspirin) and told him to follow up with a stress test within the next week or so. Shortly after that he was released and sent home.

We took it pretty easy the rest of the weekend, napping and taking care of some things around the house. We did venture out to go to church, but that’s about it. The kids were amazingly well behaved. I think the events Friday night really had them scared and they loved on Daddy a lot when he got home. To be honest it had me scared as well. I never imagined I would be taking my husband to the hospital for heart problems just days after his 35th birthday.

Sunday afternoon I felt the need to get outside for a little bit, so I bribed the kids with chocolate to let me take some photos of them. I’ve been trying to get to know a new lens and it was beautiful and sunny outside. They grumbled a bit, but I did end up with some great shots in the end. I decided to play around with some black and white processing on a few of them and I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. (The rest are on Flickr.)

And, if you aren’t already exhausted after reading all of that, go check out my latest session on the photo blog! I had a wonderful time photographing Cagey’s beautiful kiddos!

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Through the Lens

Published by dee on August 10, 2011

I’ve been missing my camera lately. It has been sitting on the shelf, packed safely inside my bag pretty much since we came home from our vacation. I did take it out to snap a few photos when my cousin and her family were visiting, but I haven’t taken the time to really photograph anything. I’ve been looking at some amazingly creative photos online recently, and have felt discouraged that I don’t have the time to experiment with my camera the way I would like to. Then I though about just how long my camera has been sitting on that shelf. Huh.

After dinner last night, I decided I was just going to shoot. Maybe just a few lifestyle type snapshots of the kids – anything just to get my finger clicking again. Since Zach refuses to let me take his photo, I ended up snapping 20-30 quick shots of Evie. A few of her playing with Thomas the Train set, then we went outside and she played in the yard while I snapped a few more.

I realized later, while I was looking through the photos I shot, that I’ve been missing out on a lot of her smiles lately as well. I’ve been tired and short-tempered lately, and that is probably only going to get worse over the next 6 months or so. Giving her a few minutes of my undivided attention made her so happy.

Sometimes, it really is the small things that matter the most. Funny how sometimes I see things so much more clearly when I’m looking through the lens.

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Thankful

Published by dee on May 12, 2011

I am feeling loved this morning. I finally set up my Dee Perrin Photography & Design facebook page last night and then had to beg for “Likes” from people so I could get my much nicer looking url set up (facebook.com/deeperrinphotography). For some stupid reason, Facebook requires you to have at least 25 Likes before you can change the url from their standard string of numbers and letters. In less than an hour I had the required 25, and was able to make the change. Thanks to all of you who helped out. I’m well beyond the 25 now, and it makes my heart happy.

As far as photography goes, I’m still feeling like a tiny little fish in a very big ocean. I’m learning so much and constantly improving my skills, but there is so much more that I feel like I’ll never know it all. It is taking a lot of time and a lot of effort. It is all worth it though when I realize just how much fun I’m having. I finally feel like I’m doing something that I’m meant to do. I know I’ll never make millions, but I feel like I’m being led in this direction for some reason.

A couple of weeks ago, I finally got a chance to do a newborn photo session. Little Ryker was just over 2 weeks old and we had quite a time trying to get him into that nice, deep sleep that allows posing. Finally, after a couple of nursing sessions with Mama, he gave in and I was able to get some great shots of him. This one in particular has gotten a lot of comments from friends and family.

Then last weekend, I got to do a 1-Year session for Levi and Joseph, who were the first babies (outside of my own family) that I ever photographed. I think the first session with them was when they were around 6 weeks old and I can’t believe how fast they have grown up! We did a fun cake smash session at a local park and had a great time!

I just realized neither one of them looks very happy in these photos, but I assure you they were! They were just too busy eating that cake!

After every session that I do, I come home exhausted and tremendously happy that I get to do this thing. I’m so thankful for the bonus that finally allowed me to buy the DSLR camera I had been dreaming of. I’m thankful for the friends and family that have allowed me to practice on them over and over and over again. I’m thankful that my husband is supportive of this dream I have, even though he would like to see my face aimed at him more and at the computer screen less. I’m thankful that there are so many free resources online that have allowed me to learn much faster than I could have on my own. I’m thankful that God has bestowed on me both the means and the ability that allow me to follow this dream.

Most of all, I’m thankful for the friends and family who believe in me. I still have so far to go and without the support of the people I love the most, I’ll never make it.

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The Nephews

Published by dee on April 25, 2011

If you’ve been reading along for any amount of time, you know that I spend a lot of time with my nephews. My sister and I are really close and our kids are constantly begging to see each other. It is rare when we don’t see them at least once on the weekends. My sister asked me months ago if I would do the boys’ photos for their birthdays this year and we finally found a day to do them. I think they turned out pretty good, but as always, I learned that there are a few things I should do differently next time.

p.s. You can thank my husband for this post as he has been complaining about the lack of of updates lately.

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A Random Saturday

Published by dee on April 6, 2011

I’m not feeling very wordy today, so I thought I’d share these photos from Saturday afternoon. It was absolutely beautiful outside so I bribed the kids to let me take photos while they played. They are mostly of Evie, as Zach refuses to let me take a decent picture of him these days. They were so happy to be playing outside that I couldn’t get them to come in for dinner!

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