How I became a wedding photographer... a bizarre and glorious road

Hopelessness and Disappointment
Six years ago, my life was at the very lowest point in my life and in drastic need of repair. I had been battling severe feelings of hopelessness, everything in my life was turned upside-down and getting worse,from my point of view. For those that know me, this probably seems so contrary to reality because on the outside I am a very positive and outgoing person. I don't think anyone knew how emotionally and spiritually broken I was.

My previous business which I was a partner of,  was and is doing well but at the time was not healthy enough to pay me a salary that would cover the basic needs of my family. The business was growing and sucking up every dollar we had. I was probably earning the equivalent of minimum wage or less, working 60-70 hours a week and earning less than unemployment wages. I was living this way for not a year or two but for over a decade. I was extremely dejected that I could work so hard for over 10 years but not provide for my family. It wasn't the amount I was making but simply that I could not provide for my family.

I was not doing much of anything creative which I have since learned is very unhealthy for a creative. Although the business started out as a creative venture for myself, I was filling my day with all the routine day to day stuff it takes to run a business, tasks that I could do but did not bring out the best in me. I felt burdened by the business because of the heavy investment we had put into it and if I left, I felt like I would be betraying my partners because of the debt we were aggressively paying back. I think my partners understood my unhappiness but did not know exactly how to help me. Our business roles where kinda set in stone for the business to run efficiently and there was no change that probably could have helped me.  The feelings of being trapped started to take over my life.

A Strained and Unhealthy Marriage
My marriage was also very strained to say the least. My wife felt extremely bitter. She was an accounting manager, a job that was very stressful but well paying. She couldn't quit her job because I did not earn enough for us to live on. What really made her bitter was our inability to have biological children. We had been trying to start a family for almost a decade but with no hope in site.  Everyone around her soon began to have children and the one thing she wanted in life seemed so distant, she felt like God was playing a cruel joke on her.

We were living through this situation for not a couple years but almost a decade- feeling trapped and hopeless which created a real strain on our marriage and made me feel like a complete failure in my life. As a man, and not being able to provide for my family or myself was a very humbling experience. It was so frustrating for my wife because she saw so many wonderful abilities and talents in me but it seemed like I was never rewarded financially for my hard and relentless work. I had been self employed for more than 12 years at this point, a mixed bag of failures and successes but nothing to hang a living on.

Furthermore, I wanted to be the spiritual leader in my family and to help her grow in her relationship with God but conversely my wife started to become increasingly bitter at God, to the point where she couldn't even pray. I felt I was failing her and I was failing God by not fulfilling part of my purpose in life as a leader. I thought I was destroying my wife's relationship with God.

All these apparent failures; not being creative at my job, not being financially compensated at my job, not being a good Christian husband and not being able to start a family with my wife and allowing her to pursue her dream of being a stay at home mom, were hitting me all at once, like a two ton rock barreling down on me. At this point in my life I really didn't care if my life ended because in this way, I thought I would be giving my wife a better future. She could remarry and find someone to give her just a "normal" life. Of course she never wanted this and never dreamed of being with anyone else but me, she just wanted things to change for us.

Working Hard, Getting Nowhere
We were both working extremely hard, not spending much time with one another and getting nowhere. Trying to live life our way was not going well and was tearing our marriage apart. Something had to give, a new way of life or we would be stuck with a broken marriage and bitterness.

With no conceivable financial plan, we decided to put our marriage first. We had always wanted to adopt one of our children so why not do it now? We always felt that if we did start a family, Stacey was going to stay home and take care of the children which was exactly the way both of us had been raised and seemed like the direction God was leading us to.

How was I going to provide for my family on $10,000 a year, living in Los Angeles and owning a home? I had no idea but from years of being a devote Christian, I knew the Lord was leading me to take a step of faith and to put my family first in my life. I vowed, I would provide for my family even if it meant taking on three jobs. I wanted to finally give Stacey the dream and purpose in life she had been wanting over a decade to live no matter what the consequences.

Risking It All and Following God's Leading
So we risked a lot of our savings to pay for our adoption which would total around $25,000 and started the process in 2000. We did not know how things were going to work out but by having faith and hope in something, we started to feel alive again and our remarkable story started to take shape.

Of course not knowing how I would provide for my family, I started thinking of ways to earn a few extra bucks. The adoption process can take up to a couple years so I had some time to consider how I was going to provide for my family.

I had always liked photography since high school and after coming back from a vacation in Europe in 1999, photography was a burning passion in my heart, just about the time digital photography was coming into play. I knew wedding photographers could make a lot of money from one wedding so I figured I could make a fraction of that and pay some bills.

One problem, I was not good enough to be a professional photographer. Yes, I had the desire but my skills were rudimentary. At the end of 1999, I bought my first 2 megapixel digital camera the Nikon Coolpix 850 for around $500 and started taking pictures like a mad man, probably about 1,000 per month. The amazing thing about digital photography was that it increased my photography skills exponentially because of the instant review of your photos and because every image recorded your settings. I could then start to understand how light, aperture and shutter speed created images.