“You’d make a fantastic lawyer.”

That’s what my dad told me my entire childhood and honestly, I don’t blame him. At all. I was a respectful but very argumentative child. If you gave me stipulations, I found a loophole. Guaranteed. It wasn’t out of defiance, but I just liked to find a loophole and exploit them for funsies. Thankfully, I grew out of that phase later in life, but to this day, even at 33, my dad still swears I’d make a great laywer. My mom, though? She really encouraged me to become a wedding or portrait photographer straight out of high school. Did I listen to her? Believe it or not, no! But Tina, you’re a wedding photographer, so what do you mean you didn’t listen to her? Not only did I not listen to her, but I’m almost positive my exact response was, “Absolutely not, mom. Never doing photography!”

You see, when I graduated high school at the ripe age of 18, I wanted a life of fame and fortune, so naturally, I chose to become an elementary education major. Delulu much?

In my defense, by that time, my mom had been teaching for nearly 30 years, my sister had been teaching for five, and my brother-in-law had been teaching for six. Teachers and teaching is all I knew. They had summers off, great insurance, and got to decorate their classrooms. Sounds like a win-win-win, right?! It was…until it wasn’t.

So how did I actually end up doing wedding photography in the long run? Great question, I’d love to tell you! But first, let’s rewind it back a bit…

On October 8, 2006, during my first-ever trip to Maine, I fell in love with photography– more specifically, landscape photography. A few months after I picked up a camera for the first time, I second shot a few weddings for my dad who’s also a photographer, but landscapes had my heart. Not to toot my own horn, but I was actually pretty good at landscape photography. It didn’t hurt that I moved to the coast of Maine in my early 20’s. I mean, it’s one of the most photogenic places one could live making it a bit difficult to take ugly photos in a place like this. During this time, I had a photograph published as a centerfold image in Downeast Magazine and even had a feature in the Maine Mag. Once again, my mom suggested pursuing photography full-time but I still had my heart set on teaching and life had other plans for me!

In 2013, I rescued my first dog, Cam, an adorable black lab. From day one, Cam became my soul dog. He went on every single photography adventure with me because he and I were inseperable. He didn’t care about the fall colors, the sunset, the boats in the harbor, he was just happy to be by my side! With him as my loyal sidekick, landscape photography quickly evolved into landscape photos with a sprinkle-sprankle of an adorable black lab in them! People were eating it up on the ‘gram. I even had an account (which has since been deactivated, sorry!) dedicated to the adventures of Cam.

Because a rescue had given me my favorite thing in the world, I wanted to give back to shelters. Thus began donating my time to the local shelter by taking photographs of their adoptable animals for Facebook and their website. Naturally, as this became known, my friends began asking me to take photos of their furry friends and slowly but surely, my available time for landscape photography was dwindling.

Over the next few years, clients who had reached out for pet portraits began reaching out for a few photos of their high school senior or their little one’s first birthday party. I reluctantly agreed for close friends, but I still tried really hard to fight this natural progression of where my niche seemed to be heading, which was taking photos of humans. I was a dog person, not a people person, duuuuh!

After graduating college, I began a year of teaching in a remote village in Alaska. While there, I took pictures of the students during a learn-to-ski activity. Something inside me lit up when I looked at those photos but I couldn’t quite put a finger on what it was. After the district shared a few of the photos to their website and Facebook, a coworker reached out for me to take photos of her family. I happily obliged because I grew close with them during my teaching stint in Alaska and loved their littles like my own.

Shortly after I moved back east, one of the little ones from that Alaska session tragically passed away. I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times I went back to their gallery and looked at his sweet little smile. That was when it hit me.

I wanted to capture people’s greatest joys in life. I wanted to give them the ability to transport themselves back to some of the happiest moments in life. What better way to do that than photography?!

So while I was teaching, I began offering holiday mini-sessions for my teacher friends as something to do during COVID and for some extra spending money. Shortly after those holiday minis, those same teacher friends began reaching out for engagement photos or couples sessions.

I’m sure you can see where this is heading because what typically comes after engagement photos? Yep, you guessed it- “Tina, will you photograph my wedding?” Within a year, I photographed the weddings of four incredible teacher-friends.

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about the current state of education. The lack of respect, support, and adequate pay left a lot to be desired. In the years following COVID, the climate of education took a nose-dive and I was no longer feeling fulfilled. I was spending my nights and weekends photographing couples and weddings, and spending my days in the classroom wishing I was behind the camera instead.

During the summer of 2023, I took the leap. I resigned from teaching and began putting my time and energy into shooting weddings, and when I say that I literally couldn’t imagine doing anything else, I truly mean it.

From seeing the groom’s face when he sees his bride in her gown for the first time, to seeing dad get choked up as the couple says their vows, to seeing friends and family come together to celebrate the newlyweds. Every part of a wedding is my favorite for one reason or another. I am truly so honored when a couple chooses little old me to capture one of the biggest, most monumental days of their life.

So while I didn’t end up in the courtroom like my dad once thought I should have, I didn’t stay in the classroom despite having a masters and a half in education, and I now spend my days in Lightroom editing thousands and thousands of images, I ended up exactly where I was meant to be…and where my mom always knew I should be.