Back to my Roots

When I was young my, “What I want to be when I grow up” list was long and varied. It included (among other things) vet, truck driver, safari guide, journalist, archeologist, teacher and world traveller.

At 21, I found myself graduating from Laurentian University with a degree in English and Psychology and wondering what the heck I was supposed to do next. Getting my Masters was out of the question, and I had been rejected by teachers colleges across the province. So what was an Eng/Psych major to do? Hope someone would hire me for my brilliant human insights, flawless writing skills and sparkling personality I suppose!

My first “grown up” job was as a Marketing Coordinator at a non-profit where I was introduced to the world of design and layout on computers. And I fell in love. Over the years I grew with the industry, learning the new software, spreading my wings, writing, designing, marketing until I felt ready to start my own small business. Actually, the inspiration came from my boss at the time who called me into his office and said, “You’re too hard-headed to be an employee here. However, you ARE really good at what you do. You’re fired, but I’ve got a list here of my contacts that would like to contract your services. Good luck and let me know if I can be of any help when you start your business”.

So, away I went with my little computer equipped with Photoshop 5.5, Pagemaker, Corel Draw 5 and the MS Office Suite and started to make a living being my own boss. Somewhere in there, I got tired of buying stock photography and having to edit, edit, edit to get the pictures where I needed them to be for my designs. That’s when I picked up a camera and realized what had been missing from my life since I put away my Kodak 110. I threw all my energy into learning how to get what I wanted from that black box. I took every workshop I could find, read every book, talked to every photographer who would have anything to do with me, burned through several thousand rolls of film, and ended up getting my photography diploma from the New York Institute of Photography to make it official.

Over the years I turned my back on manipulating images, always striving to get the photo I needed right out of the camera. Sure, I’d do basic post processing but the big stuff, the stuff I used to have to do with the stock photos I would purchase, was put on the back burner. A recent cluster of events has brought me back to my roots. First, I was hired to teach an Exploring Art & Design at Cambrian College (take THAT teacher’s college!!) where I get to work with 16 young, inspired, and wildly creative people. Second, one of my past photography students encouraged (read: shamed) me to edit a photo I had taken on the fly and it got quite a lot of attention on Flickr. Third, a good friend of mine asked me to do some editing on a few wedding pictures she’d taken.

It came to me in a flash yesterday as I was finishing the wedding edit; when I moved forward, I left too many things behind instead of blending the new skills in with the existing ones. Yesterday, I found myself going back to my roots and loving it. I have an awful lot of people to thank for giving me the shake up I needed. You know who you are don’t you?

So what happened to my “what I want to be when I grow up” list? Well, I’ve got enough animals in my house to play vet to, I drive a truck (although it has 4 wheels instead of 18), I write blogs and articles, I teach at the College and through my own business, and I dig through the internet for inspiration (archeology of the future I suppose). As for the world traveller and safari guide? I’m getting there…

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