Please join us in the FA Community where we recently discussed how we started in photography.

My dear friend Soozie, inspired me to share images from weddings that I photographed early in my career. The images below were shot in 2005, which means they weren’t from my first wedding. In other words, I was at least TWO YEARS into my business when I shot this wedding. THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER! I guess I was a slow learner, and it would appear that things like focus eluded me.

The bottom line?

We all start somewhere.

I am incredibly thankful for all the clients that gave me a chance and believed in me, even when I didn’t deserve it.

Keep shooting. Practice. Share. I promise it will all be worth it.

I have included all of the EXIF date with each photo, it’s very interesting to see what I selected then, as opposed to now.

I remember loving this photo, especially the gaussian blur edit. I actually created my own action (one of my first!) to apply this treatment on as many photos as I possible. I’m wondering if I had a fascination with armpits? I’m not sure.

Canon 20D, 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 @ f/8, ISO 400, 1/500s.

Early in my career I was really into photojournalism, ya know, documenting all of the important moments (someone should have told me not to document things that aren’t flattering). And even though I shot this at f/11 (what?), it’s out of focus because I caught the background instead.

Canon 20D, 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 @ f/11, ISO 400, 1/640s.

Sepia. That is all.

Canon 20D, 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 @ f/7.1, ISO 400, 1/400s.

Again, back-focused. It should also be noted that I went through a bit of a tilting phase.

Canon 20D, 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 @ f/8, ISO 400, 1/250s.

Framing. I used the branch to frame my subject.

Canon 20D, 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 @ f/4.5, ISO 400, 1/200s.

Fingernail. I took a photo of her FINGERNAIL. Not her hand, not her ring, but her fingernail.

Canon 20D, 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 @ f/5, ISO 400, 1/100s.

Let’s get to more recent images. Thankfully, I learned how to focus properly.

Nikon D750, Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 @ f/2.8, ISO 360, 1/4000s.

I feel that my detail shots have definitely improved.

Nikon D750, 24-70mm f/2.8 @ f/2.8, ISO 2500, 1/800s.

Composition has also improved over the years.

Nikon D750, Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 @ f/2.8, ISO 640, 1/3200s.

I think this image is a better representation of framing your subject.

Nikon D750, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 @ f/2.8, ISO 1000, 1/2500s.

What a fantastic, LEVEL shot! No tilting!

Nikon D750, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 @ f/2.8, ISO 800, 1/1250s.