New Blog Features

Hello friends!
I've been making some changes to this blog for several months now.

   Let me start out by saying, I love photography. When I was in seventh and eighth grade, I would always try to take really artsy photos with my Nintendo DSi. I would incorporate cool lighting and colors and just have fun with it.

   Freshman year, I started a Facebook album called Kitty Adventures where I took tons of photos of my cats.

   Yes, these photos are all the way from 2013!
   
   Sophomore year, I joined the school yearbook staff. I stayed in yearbook for the remaining couple of years in high school and absolutely loved taking photos. I also would bring my camera nearly everywhere with me--to every football game so I could capture photos of the marching band, and on dates with Tyler so I could document our little adventures. I also began blogging, so I got extremely comfortable with my camera.

   My first true photography task came when I took my best friend Megan's senior pictures. This was scary for me since, like I said, it was a first. I tried to utilize the colors and vibes from local buildings. These were taken in early 2016, and the bright, bubbly style was inspired by A Beautiful Mess' photo style.

   And then I went on to college and majored in Visual Communications (graphic design + photography + whatever else). So I didn't really do much more photography besides blogging...



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...until this this week.

   Recently, my coworker Cassidy expressed interest in me potentially taking her engagement photos. I felt a bit discouraged, since I hadn't done many freelance sessions in the past besides my friend's photos. But I sent her some photos of my Megan, and Cassidy encouraged me to give it a shot! So this past Monday, we went out and took some photos in downtown Dayton.

   Once again, I incorporated a classic, clean brightness/contrast to my photos as well as enhancing some of the reds to made these photos pop! I was actually so happy with how these turned out. And Cassidy also seemed super pleased with them, which made me even more happy.

   I'm not saying my photos are perfect, but I really liked this experience. It showed how much my photos have improved since my last freelance session. So with this, I thought, why not add a new tab to my blog where I can showcase my freelance work? I told a few friends about the idea, and they all thought I should go for it. So I did!

​Introducing my new "Photography" tab:

   Yep! So if you click on the photography tab, you can see any of my freelance work. I added Megan's photos AND Cassidy and Aaron's engagement photos. I'm so excited for people to see my work!

   This lead me to showing you to another portion of my tabs: the "You" tab.

   If you explore the "You" tab, you can click on "Contact Us" to either request a blog post, inquire about a collaboration, inquire about a potential photography session, ask me questions, or just say  "hello"! The contact us portion of my blog is open for anything, really. 

   And finally, the last edition to my blog: "Collaborations"

   Here, I showcase the businesses and blogs that I've collaborated with! I'm still editing my "Guest Bloggers" section, so I may be updating you folks on that soon. But for now, you can see who all I've advertised for!

   I'm really spicing up the business side of my blog, aren't I? I just felt so motivated to up my photography game after taking the engagement photos. So thank you, Cassidy, for motivating me to brush off my discouragement and to take those pictures. You pushed me to work my magic and I'm so happy that you did. Now I feel like I push this blog even farther than I thought possible!
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Thank you guys for reading! Should I add any other items to my blog? Let me know down below in the nifty comment section!

Keep on grinning!

​Lydia