Welcome to Bloom Photos
School Photography | Yuma, AZ
When it comes down to it, it’s human faces that move me.
I’ve been making art for as long as I can remember, and taking pictures since my mom let me use her Kodak 110 point and shoot film camera when I was maybe seven or eight, to photograph my Cabbage Patch Kids portraits in a lovely (not really) scene that I had setup in front of the Christmas tree. I had witnessed my baby sister have her portait taken at the department store and it RESONATED with me. It’s funny when a mundane activity, even something that’s now often looked down on (department store photos don’t have the best rep, ya know? But I will fight you if you disparage a family’s department store photos because ALL PHOTOS MATTER) can change the perspective of a child. Can I tell you that I remember that moment, carefully photographing my dolls, as vividly as the birth of my own children? I continued to dabble in photography, taking classes in high school and college and working on the high school yearbook team. But it never went further than that.
I knew I was meant to create art, and the camera was the tool that my soul chose to make art. I finally started my photography business in 2016, about thirty years after the Cabbage Patch Kid portrait session.
Why, you might wonder, did it take me so long to come back to the one thing that made my heart sing? Well, photography as a career, or even as an art, wasn’t something my family knew. I honestly didn’t know that regular people hired photographers to take family photos until well into my adult years. So I went to college, had the kids, and carried on with a career in the business world to support those kids. And then one day in 2014, my dear friend asked me to photograph her home birth. She had no idea that I loved photography, she just wanted someone there that made her feel comfortable. I said yes, used her camera to capture one of the most spiritual moments in both of our lives, and knew immediately that I was now a photographer.
A photographer. It still sounds so beautiful to me.
I bought a camera, learned how to shoot in manual, and soaked up every piece of education I could find and afford. I photographed everything! Nature, pets, people, landscapes. But I knew that people interested me most, and my business started there.
In 2018 I took a school photography class and realized that school photos can actually be beautiful! Like, who knew?? I was hooked. I started photographing schools then, and this year (2023) separated my school photography into it’s own brand: Bloom Photos. I love this part of my business so much as my incredible team and I can conveniently provides families with natural, timeless portraits of their children. Those little souls are everything to you, and to me. Our babies will always be our babies, and yearly portraits help us to remember and hang on to those memories.
To me, documenting your children is an honor.
And when it comes down to it, it’s human faces that move me.
