Peter+Nadia

I had the honor of shooting this wedding a few days before Christmas. It was an incredible mix of cultures and nationalities. Peter and Nadia are  not only wonderful clients but also great friends! Congrats guys and may God bless your marriage!

Calling vs Career vs Calling?

As some of you know and I guess the rest of you do now, I felt a calling to the ministry when I was 15. I struggled for the next 4-5 years about how that calling would manifest itself. For now I believe it is a calling to missions. Hence why my wife, daughter, and I currently live in Guatemala. However, my senior year in college I bought my first DSLR, a Canon Rrebel xt. It was tiny and all plastic and was awful at anything above iso 400. But it helped me learn photography. I could go out and shoot 300 pictures and then go sit down and look through them and figure out what I did right and wrong.

First wedding I ever helped shoot. Canon Rebel xt & 28-200 f/4-5.6

Since then I have gone from a kid who loved to take photos to a amateur photographer to a serious amateur to a professional. I graduated from my little rebel xt to now shooting a 5D Mark 2 with about $2500 in lenses, flashes, modifiers, etc.

I figured out after a while that I could make money taking pictures. I thought "wow people will pay me to take picture? This is great, it doesn't even seem like work!" Which is unfortunately the very mindset that a lot of young photogs who undercut the industry prices and deliver really awful results, but thats a topic for another post. 

I did photography as a hobby for the longest time, taking a paid gig here and there. I was also still pursuing ministry as my day job. I finished college started working on my masters degree (which I am 9 classes from finishing praise the Lord!). After I got married I started shooting as a part-time pro (which I personally believe is where the majority of the industry is heading because of a combination of the economy and the accessibility of DSLRs.) I really got into wedding and portrait photography in 2012 shooting 4 weddings in 5 weeks and 7 weddings total that year. I love being a portrait photographer. It is my niche. I shoot weddings like a portrait photographer. The photo work I do here in Guatemala I shoot like a portrait photographer. I love off camera lighting and great texture backgrounds. I love the reaction of clients when I deliver their photos or showing the photos on the back of DSLR to the little kids in the villages after I take their photo. I love being a photographer. The good, the bad, and the ugly that is all apart of being a pro. 

But this brings me to the point of this post and the angst that I am currently going through. Lately have been wrestling with my love of photography and my calling to ministry. 

I miss shooting on a regular basis. I miss meeting clients. I miss hunting locations. I started going back through my photos as I am preparing to sell off some of my gear to invest in some new pieces. The more I looked the more I began to think, "man, I'm pretty good at this." Not in a bragging "look how great I am" way but in a "I think I could make a living" kind of way. But the struggle still remains of how a calling to ministry and a career in photography match up. Is it a bi-vocational type of thing? Do I mesh the two into a media ministry that works with smaller organizations who cannot afford quality material (which I have been working on). Ministry is evolving and growing outside the box that used to contain it. But I don't know. So I continue to pray and seek the Lord about it. I will keep you updated as the Lord leads. 

For now I continue to shoot when I can. Serve with Clubhouse (which I love what I am doing with them). Grow as a leader, photographer, minister, husband, father, and christian. 

JD