Why I started taking photos.

I started taking photo's to fill in some time with a hobby. I noticed that my days did not include as much creativity as I wanted and I was trying to "fit" it in somewhere in my days. Usually at night, or during some free time. It just was not fulfilling me this way. I thought if I could combine my time in between my appointments during the day with my creative desires then maybe I would feel fulfilled throughout my entire schedule. I work with horses and so I drive quite a bit and I would find myself seeing things that called to me in the moment. As I began to notice that this was occurring on such a regular basis, I decided to get a camera and capture some of those moments. If I could. I found a great camera for me, the Canon Powershot SX 50. It's Canon's bridge camera and it turned out to be everything I was wanting in a camera. Thank you, Canon! A photographer was born! The world was my playground and people were lining up to buy my photo's for their hotel walls, card stock, walls in their homes, ad's for their companies, offices, screen savers, shirts, sails on their boats, hats, wraps for their cars, totes, billboards, dividers for their hair stations, covers of their books. The list goes on and on! Well, in my mind, so far. Lol! That is what I wanted, to wake up the part of me that dreams and feels connected to life around me as I am out driving to my work spot. I love what I do and I am thrilled to be doing it. I just was not enjoying the down time sitting in my car in a parking lot somewhere waiting for the next appointment. I wanted to keep that connected feeling that I was feeling during my appointments with the horses while I was on the way to my next one. I wanted to do that for two reasons at the time. I felt like it kept me grounded, something the horses really look for during our appointments, and it also allowed me to have my heart stay connected with nature and the life around me while I was alone. It was the same grounded feeling that I felt working with the horses. I did not realize that that was what I was missing in between appointments. I mean I knew I was missing it, but did not really narrow it down to that exact emotional feeling until I recognized that I had recreated that same connecting point in my life with the camera in my hand. Minus the heart to heart connection with the horses, of course! The camera in my hand helps me to ground myself and I love it. I feel connected to life around me, just like I wanted, in between appointments or during the times of the year when the weather slows my horse business down due to inactivity. I can find my place of creativity. I can see things that I may have missed before, and I find that I am taking the time for myself to just be out in nature, breathing it all in and feeling a part of it. What a gift to be finding this perfectly simple moments filled with the gift of life as only nature has to offer. I loved it. I soaked it in every blooming flower that turned it's petals in my direction! Cows were looking at me as I drove down the road, sunlight highlighted the horses mane just so, sunsets were calling my name even more clearly! How can a camera do all that, you ask? It was like a key, granting me access to that part of my self that I wanted to open up, not quite to people yet but at least to myself so that I could learn how to feel my connection to myself and what I wanted. It was a moment when I would just grant myself the permission that I wanted to slow down and take it all in. For me. Take it all in - for me to enjoy it. Take the time for me to just feel my heart opening and stabilizing in a much broader way, in an atmosphere that felt more safe and nurturing for me to go there in my emotions. It was a way, that I found out as I went along, for me to be there for myself in what I needed emotionally. While the camera allowed me to have a conduit for my creativity, it also allowed me to reconnect to my emotional self and let that take shape without the perceptions and comments from others. I did not know when I decided to purchase my camera and start taking photographs that it would help me to find my voice within myself for me. This time has allowed me to not only connect with nature but to find myself, feel how I fit in in my world and to reconnect with my own emotional foundation of who I feel myself to be. A "bridge" camera as well as a Powershot, indeed! Thank you, Canon! Thank you to me, for following my own path for myself and my adventures that shape my life. I am so happy to be here with my camera in hand, sharing my view with all of you!