Professional Photographers of North Carolina

One of my assignments for my photography class involved purchasing some film for an in class project. While in Southeastern Camera, I started chatting with one of the owners and inquired about photographers needing second shooters for weddings - gotta start building that portfolio! - and additional local resources for someone who's just starting out. As luck would have it, the store keeps a list of people available as second shooters so they added my name (I scanned it and there weren't too many people listed!) AND I found out about the upcoming Professional Photographers of NC workshop in Durham the last weekend of February. And the icing on the cake? They're handing out free tickets to the trade show. Sweet!

Now unlike Phillip, who scored about as high as you can score on the extrovert portion of the Myers Briggs and is as charming as they come, I'm not the most extroverted person - we balance each other out that way. So the idea of walking up to strangers, who I want to be just like, is pretty intimidating. What do I say? Hi, my name is Laura. How do I do what you do? What's your secret to success?  Photoshop or Lightroom? Nikon or Canon? Do you need someone to mentor because I'm available? Need an assistant who'll work for free? I'll do it! Please teach me everything you know.... not likely. But if I'm seriously going to do this, I'm going to have to step out of my comfort zone... eek. I'm getting nauseous just thinking about it. This is what I want to do though and I'm passionate about it, so I'm just going to have to suck it up and turn on the charm. I'm sure I have some hiding somewhere ;)   

Here's to taking chances! PPA here I come! 

And representing my motivation is this picture of me sitting on top of The Law in North Berwick, Scotland. This was our first day there and we hadn't slept in over 24 hours, so needless to say we were pretty exhausted, but didn't want to miss a second of the great weather since it was supposed to rain the rest of the trip. So we hiked and on the hike, ran into an American student studying photography! I remember being so jealous that she had figured out the photography "thing" at such a young age, but also inspired that this was something obtainable and grateful that I had the clarity to see my passion now. So here I am, no shower and no sleep, but grinning ear to ear after climbing 187 m (613 ft) to the top of The Law. Whenever I am feeling lazy, I look at the picture and tell myself to get off my bum and go climb a mountain (or very large hill). No excuses!