I’m Nicole, owner of Nicole Julia Photography. Mariel is my cousin and asked me if I would like to be a contributor to her blog! How could I turn down and opportunity like that!? Unfortunately, I am nothing like Mariel, and I don’t know how to put what I am thinking into words. She is amazing at expressing herself. I’m a little intimidated to be posting on the same blog as her. Like I said I’m not perfect, so I thought what the heck here it goes… I am going to be giving photography tips here on ‘Or so she says…’ that will help everyday moms learn how to take great photos. I will talk about products I like, different lenses, indoor/outdoor lighting, editing tips, and all things photography.
Above is a picture of my family. She asked me if I will tell you a little bit about myself. I am 24 years old and married the perfect guy for me when I was 19. Since then we have had 2 kids, 1 girl, Kate, and 1 boy, Ty, and of course I can’t forget the dog, Hunter. I don’t enjoy cooking or doing laundry, but who does!? I try to be cute and crafty but quite honestly I’m not very good at that either. Thank heavens for Pinterest. Something I find very embarrassing about myself, that I hate to admit, but I have absolutely TERRIBLE grammar. I have my sweet husband proof read almost everything for me. You are probably thinking why did he marry such a dummy? Well he knew what he was getting into before he even married me. He had to help me write all my college papers. If you ever get an email from me please don’t look at it too closely because you will think I’m an idiot. I LOVE having play dates and going to lunch with the girls. I’m kind of hard to get to know at first, but once I open up you probably will have wished I hadn’t, I kind of have hard time shutting up. I like to talk and I just can’t seem to help it! My love for photography happened after I had Kate. I was a stay at home mom and spent a lot of time blogging and looking at other blogs. I envied those moms that had all these amazing pictures of their kids. After a while I decided I was going to teach myself how to take great photos. Thanks to my supportive husband, he told me to go for it. Here I am now 3 years later still taking pictures. I am NOWHERE near perfect when it comes to taking pictures, or anything else, and I don’t ever intend on getting there. There you have it, now you know a little something about me.
In this post I’m going to talk about my greatest struggle, and what a lot of times has held me back, when it comes to photography. For a lot us of it is our greatest struggle in general… COMPARING ourselves. When I first started photography a little over 3 years ago, I jumped into it thinking I was going to be amazing at photography in a matter of months. I bought my camera and went to work youtubing, googling, reading forums on everything I could possibly imagine. Right after I would learn something I would get out my camera and start snapping away. I would then put all the pictures on the computer and start “editing” away, or what I thought was editing. Editing is something I will get more into a little later on. After I would edit a picture I would get online and go look at other photography blogs to see how my photos would compare. I would get so down on myself. In short my photos were terrible. You probably took better pictures on your iPhone then I did on my “fancy” camera. My whole point of this post is to tell you DON’T GET DISCOURAGED! If it wasn’t for my husband I probably would have quit photography shortly after I started. I was that photographer that had to take hundreds of photos, just to capture one good one. I would get on the computer and look at photography blogs and wanted to go cry in the corner, sometimes I actually did. I thought there was no way in this world that I will ever be a good photographer. I probably shouldn’t have been comparing myself to other photographers that had been taking photos for 5 plus years but those were the photographers I “thought” I needed to measure up to. Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about.
These are 2 pictures I took within the first 3 months of starting.
Lets just say they look awful, so awful that I got rid of all the photos on my old blog so that no one could see how bad I was. I actually kind of wished I kept them so I could always go back and see my progress. Luckily (or unluckily) for me they are still all over google when you google “Nicole Julia Photography images.” Now if you really want to you can google it and you will probably say “wow she really did suck”, which may make you feel a lot better as a beginner:) The colors in these photos are way over saturated, the photo isn’t clear, and if you notice, the edges are crazy dark (I did way to much vignette.)
I keep saying how I would look at other photography blogs and compare myself to them and get discouraged. I had to change my mind set. If it wasn’t for those blogs, I would have never gotten better! I looked at photography blogs to find ways to improve. Nobody is amazing at first even though many of us think we will be or hope to be, I just had to realize, those photographers were not amazing when they started out either. It was just like everything else, it took practice and a lot of it. Took hours of messing with my camera, reading tons of tutorials, and watching endless youtube videos. When I looked at other photography blogs I would see what it was that I loved about their photos, whether it was how “warm” and “soft” they looked or the “contrast” they had so I would google how to get a “soft” look to my photos. Literally hundreds of articles would pop up and I would start to reading and practicing. I was teaching myself everyday. I wasn’t trying to copy anyone but wanted to learn the tools to create my own style. I’m still changing and learning everyday. That is what I LOVE about photography, you can always get better and there is so much to it, you are constantly learning. After 3 years you can now see how far I’ve come with examples of some more of my recent photo shoots.
Needless to say I have had major improvements from my first photos. I hope if anything this post encourages other moms that are pursuing or wanting to pursue photography to take the jump. I say do it! Even if its just for your own family. You WILL get discourage but don’t let it stop you. I can’t wait to see what my photos look like in another 3 years from now! I know I still have room for improvement, and always will, but thats what makes it fun, the challenge to become better. I love looking at other photography blogs, so share your blog or website here in the comments sections. I would love to follow you. Also if you want to check out my FB page its Nicole Julia Photography I would love you forever if you clicked that little “Like” button:) You can also find my web site, here.