I had the pleasure of meeting sweet Erin Cobb last week. She has been such an inspiration to me as I began building my business and at the risk of sounding dramatic, she is a big reason why I am blessed to be where I am today. Do you ever feel like somehow things are so connected its hard to get your head around how it all worked out!? That’s how I feel about how lucky I am to have the greatest job in the world.. It all started about 3 years ago..
Jackson was a newborn and I had started snapping crazy amounts of photographs of him. I didn’t want to miss anything. I didn’t want to forget anything. I knew with every passing day he was one day older, one day bigger, one day away from this newborn little precious miracle I loved more then myself from the second I knew he was going to be my son. I knew in a blink he was going to be graduating! Although photography had always been a passion of mine, I never had any ‘formal’ training. I played with my camera, tried different things, tried to figure out but mostly didn’t really know what I was doing. When I was getting married, I did a lot of research on ‘The Knot.’ I was kicked over to ‘The Nest,’ after I had Jackson and there were some women there that were in my exact same position! They loved taking photographs of their children and they were learning about their cameras and how to get the photographs we’d all fallen in love with online from other great photographers. Those women started a message board and before I knew it we had so many members who enjoyed the love of photography and many of them had young kids at home so it was an instant bond! It was there that I became to ‘know’ Lyndsay. We have never met, and I’m not sure she will ever know how grateful I am for her gifts she doesn’t even know she’s given me, but I know. And I am forever in debt to her.
She made a post one day about a friend of hers, Erin Cobb, whose daughter was in the running for the Gap Casting Call. Sarah (Pigbear as she is nicknamed!) needed votes to win so Lyndsay posted the link to Erin’s blog and of course on Erin’s blog you could click to vote for Sarah! It was that day that I added Erin to my favorites and have been following her ever since. I started reading about her and her adorable little family and I felt like if she lived near me, we’d totally hang out! That’s the amazing thing about blogs, isn’t it? We feel connected and friendships for people that we may really have never met – how incredible. It was about that time that Rick and I began seriously considering photography as a business. I had been doing a lot of thinking and a lot of praying about it. I had just finished my Masters in Elementary Education and received my license to teach, but Jackson was a newborn and I was nannying at the time. I needed to work but with the great family I worked for, he could come with me and I could still work and watch him grow up – again, a huge blessing. Should I go back to teaching just because I could? Should I try to start a business following my passion? Who knew which was the ‘right’ answer? We discussed it, a lot.
One night after Jackson went to bed I was reading Erin’s blog and she had posted about her friend Wendy Schulz. Wendy had mentored Erin and took her under her wing to teach her about her photography and help her grow into what she wanted to be. After I read Erin’s post, I immediately went to Wendy’s blog and saw that she started offering an online workshop – to do the same thing! SOLD. I talked it over with Rick and we decide this was it. Let’s give this a shot.
So I signed up for Wendy’s class and without a doubt, SHE is the reason I am where I am. She gave me challenges and feedback that has taught me about myself, about my camera, about my craft. She is amazing. She is inspiring, and boy is she hysterical! I have since sent Wendy a few of my friends and even my cousin Jake took her online course. I’m sure her waiting list is long, but if you want to know about photography from one of the greatest teachers, SIGN UP. You won’t regret it.
So lets recap. Lyndsay ‘introduced’ me to Erin. Erin ‘introduced’ me to Wendy, and Wendy is what gave my business the foundation to become a business. Well, this past week Erin was visiting her friends in Boston and asked if any Bostonians would like to come out to get together — It was about a second of before I responded – ME ME ME! Remember, we were friends in my head already! Ha..
So luckily, Rick was sweet enough to come home after a long day of work and let me take off to Starbucks to meet Erin, finally! In typical Boston fashion, there was traffic so of course I was late but nevertheless, I made it and guess what… She was JUST as sweet, if not more, in person! Just like I knew she would be! She jumped right up and gave me a hug and we all started laughing right away – like we were all old friends. Just the way it should be with someone who has helped shape your life, right!? 
Ellen and Diana are from Boston and also follow Erin’s blog so it was nice to make new friends too - Samantha and Erin have been friends for a long time and the 5 of us had a great visit together just chatting it up! The time passed too quickly of course, but hopefully the next visit Erin makes to Boston we’ll have some more time to catch up!
Totally ‘borrowed’ from Erin — You can see her thoughts from our meet up here:
(l->r) Ellen - Erin - Diana -Yours Truly - Samantha!
So Lyndsay, Thank you for posting Erin’s link. Erin thank you for posting Wendy’s link and Wendy, thank you for making me jump when I wasn’t sure their was a net under me. Turns out I didn’t need it anyways thanks to you.. For that, for all of you, I am grateful
We are grateful.
Much love.
Thankfully,
thanks for sticking by me.
