Before you get all excited I’m not the one that is 40, at least not yet.  That honor would go to my lovely husband!!!! Why am I sharing about him tonight? That’s a great question, so I’ll explain.  It’s so easy to stumble across a photographers website and or blog and admire and read and either make a connection or not, but how awesome it would be to stumble across that blog/website and take a sneaky look into that persons personal life.  So In honor of my husband’s birthday I felt I’d take the time to write a personal blog for you guys and introduce you to my biggest supporter and the other better half of the girl behind d.l.b. photography.

First let me say….HAPPY BIRTHDAY Chris!!! 40 sure looks good on you baby!!!

 I mean really how many people can say that they are married to a living, walking, talking hero…I can…

The past 14 years of my life have been more than I could have ever dreamed they could be, a huge part of that has been you.  I thank God everyday for the love that he showed me when he put you in my life, it’s a love that’s like no other comes close to my love for my Heavenly Father and the children that he trusted us with.  I’ve never met a person with such drive in their life, you are an amazing provider, father, husband and best friend.  You are stubborn, sensitive at the right times, have the best laugh, the sweetest kisses, the most healing hugs, and have the ability to make anyone around you want to be better than they currently are in whatever they are trying to accomplish in life.  While you could quite possibly be the smartest person I’ve ever met, I don’t say that often, well not to you anyway 😉

While no relationship is perfect I think that we are imperfectly perfect together, we each bring the good ,the bad and the ugly and mesh it together to make something beautiful.  I fall in LOVE with you everyday it’s the easiest part of my day.  When I started thinking about this blog post I had so much running around in my head to share but it all boils down to these few truths: You, Chris Bramlett, are my Best Yes.  Saying yes to that first date was the start of my puzzle that makes up my big picture.  I still laugh about you saying you were “Independently wealthy” just for the record that wasn’t a selling feature, it just proved to me that you had jokes and imagination.  While 14 years doesn’t seem like a long time, I feel as if you’ve always been in my life, the highlights and lowlights of my life you’ve been there.  You picked up my broken and unsure heart and held it in your hands, you taught me to laugh, to love, to live life with someone no matter what life may throw at you.  You’ve shown me how to do life with my best friend.

Thank you for everything that you are, for the life that we have created together, for our babies that have an amazing example of what a man, a Husband and a Daddy should be. Thank you for giving the boys a role model and for giving our daughter her first knight and shining armor.  If you doubt that check out the way she looks at him.

So as much as you have fought this day and are refusing to say that come tomorrow on January 18th you will be 40, I’ll let you call it the 1st anniversary of your 39th birthday…LOL  if that makes you happy.

I took a trip down memory lane and thru some of the hard drives this weekend and pulled some of my favorite pictures of you, added a song that makes me see your face every time I hear it and made a little something extra for you….Happy Birthday again I love you the most!!

Click Here to watch on Viemo or Here for Youtube

Song : Thinking out Loud by Ed Sheeran

Hey YALL!!! It’s been quiet here for a while, I know…I’m so sorry about that.  Sometimes as a business owner and a woman it’s hard to be able to separate life and work, balance life and work, kids, husbands, house and friends.  More often than not we, or I should say I, lose track of the fact that I am human not a superhero.

Y’all like what I did there, didn’t you it’s ok…That’s part of my new direction with this blog and my business.  I’ve struggled with intermingling personal posts and just business posts.  But in the grand scheme of things I want for you guys to know me not just as the photographer but me as the person, the mom to three beautiful children, the wife to an amazing husband, and more importantly the person that just like everyone else is just trying to make it in this world doing what I love the most.  The line between this being a hobby and a living or a job can be blurred at times, and the avenues that we take to make sure we get to where we are going may not always be crystal clear. However at the end of the day finding that direction, forgiving yourself for the mistakes that you’ve made and pressing on with the dreams you have are way worth all the struggle.

For those of you that are just reading I’ll introduce myself, I’m Dana, owner and photographer of d.l.b. photography.

I’m very passionate about what I do for a living, after all it is the GREATEST job EVER! I will admit in the beginning of my journey I wanted to dabble in everything, and like most things you can’t perfect your craft if you are just giving tiny pieces of yourself to several different areas.  On September 20th of this year marks 2 years of me taking that step in faith and becoming a photographer full time.  In these 2 years I’ve learned to look at myself, notice the good, the bad, and yes even the ugly.  I’ve struggled with this blog post because honestly laying everything out on the table for people to read makes someone very vulnerable.  I talked to a fellow photographer about blogging personal things as well, and her response was,” Why not? What do you have to lose?  You are human, it will show people who you are, where you’ve came from, and where you are going.”

In January of this year, with the love and support of my family, I took the leap and signed the lease on a studio space.  Nervous about making it and excited at the same time, I just felt that it was the next step.  I was tired of loading and unloading, meeting in coffee shops and not really feeling  or having what I needed or wanted to offer to clients according to the direction that I wanted my business to grow.  The day the sign went up in front of the building I stood in the yard and cried.  God has been so faithful, he has clearly reassured me over and over that he and only he knows the plans he has for me.  In July of this year I started feeling that  the time to expand the little space that I was renting was coming.  I signed a new lease to include a little more of the building.

When you have growth, you will go thru changes.  By adding a little more of the building I have started adding to the rest of my vision for d.l.b. photography, by not just putting the props that I’ve wanted for like ever on a “wish list”, but making them readily accessible to you guys.  It seemed like I was adding to the never ending “wish list” saying “one day”, or “I love that, but so in so has it”, when my husband so bluntly sat me down and told me, “Honey, it’s business, prop makers are banking on you seeing something that someone else has and wanting to purchase it.  If it is going to serve your client’s needs and what they are looking for, make the choice, make the change, add to your business and to the service that you are offering to your clients.”  The man is a genius, but don’t tell him I said that 😉

When I first started d.l.b. I wanted to be competitive, wanted to make sure I was offering what the photographer next store could offer and if I’m being honest, that can and will make a person crazy.  Another amazing photographer that I look up to more than she knows told me and it still is ringing loudly in my ears “I’m not worried about what my neighbor is doing, it’s not hurting my checkbook if I’m running my business in the way that I want, offering the products I want to offer to my clients, and they are happy.  You can only be the best you.  Look at where you started and where you are now and move forward from there.” Once that clicked decisions and paths become clearer.

As much as I LOVE everything about photography, I know that I’m not great at it all.  So I let the idea of having to be the best go and focus on what stirs my soul, what shows my best, and how am I going to achieve that.  I’m moving in the direction of becoming a full service studio, from offering pre session consults, studio/prop tours, and offering certain gowns, dresses, and outfits to meet a stylized shoot if needed. Also offering in person proofing sessions and custom packages with canvas collections. Which means this isn’t a hobby, while it is my passion, its a commitment to being something you want to tell your friends and your family about.  It’s an experience from beginning to the end.

After a few months of building, design, a few little melt downs because after all I am a girl…HA I’m excited to be able to show you the addition to the studio.

Thank you to those that have been here from the start, and to those that are just joining in the growth process of my little dream.  I’m excited to be able to share with you my dreams and not only my plans but my prayers for the future.  I’m excited to see what happens next.  I say it all the time My clients ROCK, that’s past, present, and future….

xoxo

D

Photo credit to my awesome photographer friend Virginia Powell with A Cherished Moment Photography