Backstory: Why I do what I do
Hello my name is Heather. I am a mom of boys (3 of them!), two have graduated from high school, and I have one more at home. I also have 2 birds, 2 dogs, and a bunch of chickens. I come from a large family; I am the youngest of ten!
Upstate New York based, I grew up in the rural communities surrounded by the Adirondack Mountains and the Great Sacandaga Lake. I enjoy being outdoors, spending time with my family, as we enjoy nature; kayaking, hiking, fishing, hunting, chasing waterfalls, and adventures for family time and photo ops, of course my camera comes with on every adventure.
I have had a camera in my hands for as long as I can remember, always grabbing the closest within reach to snap a photo of anything that interested me. I received my own first camera as a gift from my grandmother for my sixth birthday. Some of my fondest memories of my childhood are of us driving around and she would pull over and tell me to get out of the car to take pictures of this or that and then jump back in the car on to the next photo worthy thing. At that time never really knowing how to use the camera, and knowing nothing about light or composition, I just knew that I was enjoying spending time with my Grandmother and going on adventures. The best advice she ever told me was "shoot whatever you love, and never stop". That's my motto :)
It was never taught the importance of taking photos with those that you love and hold dear. I never had professional photos taken of myself or with my mother and siblings. It was luxury that was not high on the priorities list for our family. There were not photos on the walls of me growing up. There were only ever 2 photos on our walls. The first one was my older siblings all together when they were very young, and the second, included me, I was an infant in the photo. They hung in the living room of my mother's house my entire life. There were zero photos of my mother. I learned the hard way how important photos of your people are. I was not aware that all the moments that were passing me by.
The realization struck me in 2007 when our mother had suddenly passed. While planning funeral arrangements, we barely could find enough photos of her to complete the memory board. It hurts my heart today, not seeing how we grew up, how we changed, how we were all connected together. Now having my own children, I realize how important those memories and photos are. I do not have many photos to show my boys their grandmother, or my childhood, or my siblings. So now, I take photos of everything. I do not want my kids to think I am not there and not present with them. I want them to have memories of who I was and how much I loved them, and they will have family memories to pass down to their children, for generations to come.