How Awesome is THIS contest?

Posted on March 17, 2010

Grand Rapids, Michigan Portrait Photographer | Amy Wenzel

As I started to write my entry for Amy Wenzel’s contest, I had to really give it some thought. Even as I sit here now, I’m really not that sure of what I am going to write for my entry to the Amy Wenzel workshop contest. I have been anxious to go to her workshop for about a year now, but never really had the chance or money, but when I stumbled across this contest that was on like page 3 of the I Heart Faces blog, I knew I had to enter.

The contest is about sharing your inspiring story and how you inspire others. I know that people read my posts because I have been told by a few people that they blog stalk me (it’s okay to comment every once in a while too, I do enjoy reading them *wink*wink*), but I’m not really sure if I actually inspire anyone. Do I have an inspiring story? I didn’t have a terrible childhood, strange, but not terrible; I have an amazing husband, son and daughter; and the wedding side of my business has really taken off in a very short period of time.

As I began to search for the inspiring story that will hopefully change someone’s life, I looked at my son and the frustration that he faces daily not being able to talk to me and tell me what’s wrong or tell me that he wants me to play with him. I finally had the courage to post my blog entry about him in a recent post, but I still feel like there is more to share about him. As I begin to come to terms of Bryce’s disorder and how our life has to change as a result, I have tried to balance my life and my business accordingly. We don’t know everything about what sets him off to be violent or when he needs a certain therapeutic activity, but we do our best. The hardest thing for me is trying to get my end of the business down so that I can work with him and focus solely on his activity. I really can’t set an activity up and expect him to sit there and just do it, even if he’s sitting right next to me. I have to do it WITH him or he can’t pay attention to it long enough for it to be beneficial to his sensory. In my life, he comes first, but knowing that working on the business will ultimately benefit him and help pay for his therapy, activities that he needs for sensory, and yes even diapers, makes it difficult for me to find that happy medium for my time with Bryce and the business. Unfortunately, because he gets most of his sensory from jumping, I let him jump while I work (meaning work triumphs more than I want it to). Over all, I feel that between my husband and I, we make it work. I would love to say that one day someone emails me and tells me that knowing we made it work, despite any set backs we went through, has inspired them in their career (whatever that may be).

This is where I feel that if I were to win the Amy Wenzel Workshop would benefit my business and my life. As I mentioned above, I have been wanting to take her workshop for over a year now. I want to photograph children, I use to work in a photography studio, but I have somewhere down the line forgotten how. I use to say that I would never photograph children and would focus all my efforts on weddings because photographing Bryce had become bothersome to me. Now that we know that he has special needs, I understand why I have a hard photographing him, because it bothers him. I believe that Amy’s workshop would prepare me for photographing children in the future along with the knowledge that by photographing portraits, I can focus more time on Bryce instead of only bringing in the income by solely photographing weddings.