I'm Marie Richards, a 28 year old Stay at home Mum to 2 toddlers, I have 2 year old Freddie and 1 year old Bella. I've been married to my husband Alan for 5 years and we've recently made a big move over from our home in England to live in Westchester, New York for his work.
I have always been interested in photography, I have been taking photos ever since I can remember.
I distinctly remember setting up my dolls in the garden when I was about 8 and taking their "Family" portraits in front of our brick wall garage. Though I'm not sure my Dad was too happy when he saw that the pictures he'd just had developed was just pictures of dolls in various poses!
For my 12th Birthday I got given a "build your own camera" kit. I still think this was a pretty awesome gift. I put together the 35mm camera within a few days and started shooting on the black and white film provided. Unfortunately, my camera building skills were obviously not up to much and I was rather disappointed when I had the film developed and everything was just GREY! I really wish I could have the opportunity to make another one now though and really learn how it all works from the inside out.
The true obsession began though when I had my son. I seemed to always have the camera out, capturing his many many milestones in the first years and seeing him grow in front of my camera. I enjoy throughly looking back through older photos of him and seeing how far he came in such a short time. By the time my daughter was born I was far more confident with my DSLR camera, and attempted setting up posed shots and playing at editing them.
My passion for photography truly surfaced with my love for my children, no other subject put in front of the lens could captivate my attention and spur me on to try to better my skills other than them.
The biggest breakthrough came when I started experimenting with manual settings on the camera. I was in shock and awe with the realisation that "auto" mode doesn't always get the best pictures from the camera! I was loving the new style of photographs I was able to take, I had become creatively in-charge of the captures!
So here comes this blog, I want to showcase the photos I take on a daily basis and along with trying to learn the technicalities of photography, be able to hopefully, in time, be able to look back and see how far "I" came. Not only creatively but also through our journey as a family.
I hope that you can come along on this journey with me...
