As we enter month 2 of this stay in place order, I hope that you are remaining healthy and in good spirits. Like many, I have had a ton of extra time lately. I’ve been using this time to not only enjoy extra time with my family and around my home, but I’ve been using this time to grow as a photographer and business owner. I had weddings and sessions lined up for April and May and all have been rescheduled and while this hasn’t been a fun experience, I do consider myself fortunate because as of right now all of my rescheduled weddings have not been affected by conflicting dates. At least on my end, the rescheduled weddings have worked out and for that, I consider where I am currently fortunate because I know there are others out there not so fortunate. Illinois’ governor has extended the stay in place order through May. At the time of writing this blog, I’m still waiting to hear back from our representatives if photographers can work because I’ve seen chatter saying that we can, but I need confirmation first. There are still a lot of unknowns with the future, but I continue to stay optimistic about what is in store. I, personally, have chosen not to take any loan even with the promises of forgiveness. That’s not to say I didn’t try. I got about 50% through the application twice and both times I had this feeling of not moving forward, it felt wrong to me. Since 2009, I have been able to run this business debt-free and as I went through the process of the forgivable loan application, even though it was forgivable, it was still a loan, and it’s not 100% guaranteed that it will even be forgiven. I have decided to try and tough this out and do everything possible to ensure I come out of this still debt-free. As a Christian, I had also felt conviction about going after the loan, because when I tried twice, it was when this stay in place order was executed, so there was a hint of fear from the beginning and I began to question who is my faith in? We are all in different places and all have different situations we are going through so please don’t take this as any judgment on whatever you personally may have decided to do. I’m only speaking about myself and what’s going on with my business and life. I’m beyond grateful for those who have continued to book their wedding and family sessions with me through this time. I cannot wait for all this to be behind us and to work with all of you. You have given me encouragement through this time and hope that you all are able to remain hopeful and encouraged as well.
Onto the pictures. When I was in high school, my dream was to be an action sports photographer and/or national geographic photographer. After watching a documentary about National Geographic Photographers, that dream changed dramatically when I saw the photographer covered head to toe in bugs remaining still to get their shot. No thank you. However, because of this time we have, I have decided to at least partially entertain that dream of photographing wildlife again… minus the head-to-toe bug covering. 😉 We have set up a winged preserve behind our house with many birdhouses and a lot of feeders, primarily for our kids to enjoy the wildlife, but all of us have really enjoyed watching them. I started photographing them and this has proven to be quite a challenge. A four-inch bird is extremely hard to photograph. HA! But the challenge has been quite exciting and something I’ve really enjoyed doing so I thought I’d share some of the images with you.
Again, I hope that you are staying healthy and remaining hopeful. My encouragement to you is to try something new during this time. Challenge yourself. There have been memes going around saying how our grandparents were ordered to storm the beaches of Normandy and we are called to sit on our couch and watch Netflix and to a degree, sure, that’s true, but do not simply let this time go to waste.
