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Balboa Park Engagement Photography | The start of MJP

melissajmattson
Mar 4, 2015
2 min read

The most common question I get from clients is when did I 'know' I wanted to become a photographer -- how it all started.

And I always feel like my answer falls a little flat. I think people want to hear this romantic story of passion and persistence- a childhood dream that I made come true.

Instead I tell them it just kinda happened. Sure, I always had an interest, but once I finally bought that new DSLR it just kind of all fell into place. Heck, when I bought it I had NO clue what DSLR even meant!

But as I've been going through boxes of old things I've realized it did all start way back when.

I found photos of when I made my sister and niece be my models and we explored around our property taking photos.

(Cell phone pic, but I promise the actual photos aren't much better quality)

I'm remembering the time I found a Canon AE-1 (the one I still have and use today!) in a box of stuff of my brothers, and I went out and bought film, and fine tuned the camera until it worked again. And then I ran around taking blurry over and underexposed photos of my nephew, my first experience with shooting in manual.

I even found a journal entry from Jr high in which I wrote that I had no idea what I wanted to do other than the absurd dream of being a photographer or writer.

Then in college my sister and her boyfriend were going on a date (I guess it must have been an anniversary) and I hid and was the paparazzi of their date, and then we had what essentially was my first ever couples session. In Balboa park. With a point and shoot camera. But I directed them, told them how and where to pose, and in a way I think that was the beginning of my creativity and believing I could do it.

(I couldn't find a photo from that session with them, but I'm pretty sure I took this photo of them at their proposal, check out that awesome tilt.... errrrr... but at least they're super cute!)

And then last year, I got to do another engagement session at Balboa. And oh man, it was so much better! I wish I could have brought this skill to my sister's session years ago, but at least -- as I shot in the exact same spot as years before -- I was able to see so well how much I've grown and I was able to remember that this passion of photography I have is a little more romantic than the cliffnote story I usually tell.