If you have been paying attention you may know I MADE IT TO THE TOP FIVE PHOTOGRAPHERS in Kansas City according to The Pitch Kansas City!

Over the next few weeks while the polls are open I will share some of the ways that photography has changed my life and why this means so much to me.😍

(If you want to skip this story you can just go vote for me to make me number one! 👍
Click: https://www.thepitchkc.com/bestofkc19/ ➡️ "Goods and Services" ➡️ Best Photographer (Business) ➡️ LGEmerick Photography )

But you may not know that my path to photography was really🙌 freaking🙌weird.

For the first 25 years of my life photography wasn't even on my radar.

🐾 When I was 8 I wanted to be a vet.
📖 at 12 I wanted to be an author
🎹 at 16 I wanted to teach piano and music theory.
🤓 at 19 I wanted to be an accountant (even got my degree in it) and work for the IRS

Before I found photography (or photography found me?) I bounced around to a new job almost annually:

🎂 I decorated wedding cakes
👩‍👦‍👦 Nannied some amazing kids
🍔 Shift managed two restaurants
👩‍🔬 Taught grade school science
👩‍🎤 Worked and performed at an improv theater
🎪 Helped run summer camps
💵 Was a bank teller
... and that is just part of my resume.

Then, newly married and scared out of my mind, I followed my husband to Los Angeles. 🌊☀️

😭I didn't know anyone.
🤷‍♀️ We were broke as jokes (hello just graduated, paid for our own wedding, and moved across the country in one year realness!)
📸But I did have a Nikon D3000 with a kit lens I had gifted myself.

So, like the good homeschooler I was, I committed to learning how to take beautiful photographs.

I took THOUSANDS of HORRENDOUS pictures (legit. Like. Really bad)😬

I posted on critique boards and got ripped to shreds more than once. 🥺

I studied work of photographers I admired.🤩

I watched countless youtube tutorials on lighting, editing, composition, and workflows. 😵

💻I started sharing some of my work on facebook.

I started making some friends in LA and asking them if they would pose for me. 💃

I photographed dozens of kids birthday parties for gas money and cake 🍰

🏋️‍♀️ I kept hustling
📌 I kept responding to job postings
💰 I saved and invested in better equipment & education
✅ I said yes to pretty much every opportunity that came my way

But at that point I hadn't ever really considered doing this as my full time job. 🤦‍♀️

💲It was my side hustle.
🔄A hobby that fed itself.

Until I really took a look at what I was doing and realized that - heck - even though I was working full time at another job I was really doing pretty great with this photography thing too.

💥I realized that maybe photography was my actual job and my 9-5 was my side hustle.💥

➡️And that is when everything shifted.

This photo is from the first wedding I ever shot. It was a beach elopement 6 years ago back when my hair was a really weird color.

💭I remember thinking💭
"Wow. These total strangers are trusting me with this huge moment in their lives."

I remember getting that deep, settling feeling in my stomach with the weight of that honor, that gift. 🎁

🚗I remember driving home absolutely giddy and editing the whole thing in one sitting. 🚗

💭I remember thinking💭
"Yeah. This is what I want to do."

So for the better part of the last six years I have been figuring out exactly what it meant to not only take beautiful pictures but give my clients a rich, stress-free, meaningful experience from start to finish. 💯I've spent hundreds of hours thinking and creating and polishing aspects of my business so every question and concern is anticipated and answered before it is asked!

If you told me when I was 25 that I would be writing this post, that I would in the running for top photographer in Kansas City, I would have laughed🤣and laughed🤣 and laughed🤣

But here I am and just like with this nomination I couldn't have done it without all of your support. 🙏

Thank you from the bottom of my heart! 💖

NEXT WEEK I will share what photography means to me and how it changed my entire perspective on life. 🧘‍♀️

UNTIL THEN:
🙏Please Vote🙏
➡️ https://www.thepitchkc.com/bestofkc19/
➡️ "Goods and Services"
➡️ Best Photographer (Business)
➡️ LGEmerick Photography