art is life

What happens when an undetermined future for America meets worried parents meets a tired journalist? A diaspora of following the heart. I have spent more than half a decade committed to the media field. As of 2008, this now seemingly dying business that I love (or at least what it used to represent is dying) has literally made me sick. I mean physically. You know when people say that a job isn’t worth losing your health over? This is always so easy to say, but so hard to do.

I’ve always had a passion for writing. I’ve written ever since I was seven. I started out with an old gray typewriter my parents set up in my bedroom. I still have all of my old work tucked away in Manila files. As I grew up, I still longed for writing but I picked up a camera for the first time as a pre-teen and fell in love. To me you can tell the same story with the lens as you can with words. The stories are painted by capturing one moment in time you will never get again. Over the years, this love got stashed away — just like those stories I kept from childhood. Ironically it was my future career in journalism that made me find the camera again and I haven’t put it down since.

I started a business called artsbyjphotgraphy.com back in 2007. It really began as just an outlet for my portrait work, then it grew into a few exhibits and then weddings. Oh boy, wedding photography. It gets a bad rap for some reason but the stress of a beautiful bride doesn’t come close to the stress of deadlines, managing a team, editing and literally having to wear every hat in your closet.

Both of these parts of my life are dear to my heart but only one has BECOME my heart. So here I am, attempting to take the full leap into these uncharted waters. Come swim with me.