Portraits by J is committed to being an involved member of the community and to using the skills and talents God has blessed me with to enhance and enrich the lives of those in my community to the best of my abilities.

First and foremost, I like taking pictures! Pictures of people, that is! I started my career in photography with my first digital camera about 10 years ago – it was a 1MB point and shoot with no memory to speak of – “take 6 pictures and then download” became my mantra! I continued to upgrade through the following 2 years or so until I started using a Sony Mavica cd500 – 2.1MP….I loved it! After another 3 years people kept saying “You should do this professionally!” whenever they saw the pictures I was taking of my daughters — and I’ll admit, the idea was tempting, but I knew the limitations of my equipment and I also knew that I wasn’t going to be giving people that ’studio’ look that so many seem to want.

After my son was born almost 4 years ago, though, I started getting a whole new group of people telling me to ‘go pro’ — his therapists and social workers. You see, my son has Down syndrome – and there is a whole community of people who have children w/ special needs for whom going to the studio is simply too difficult.  My first photo session experience was enough to shove me full throttle into the world of professional photography!

So, my Mavica and I had our first session in March of 2007 – outdoors at a park with a family who has 2 little girls – one who has special needs. It was beautiful! I was so happy with how the shots turned out and so was the family! In fact, I also shot a swim meet for some families at a Special Olympics meet, did Senior Pictures for a graduate who has Down syndrome, a family session for a little boy with Cerebral Palsy and his mom and dad, and did a ton of candids for our local Buddy walk this last fall….Things that never would have crossed my plate otherwise!

I retired my Mavica after that first session, worked my way through a Canon Rebel XT and now sport a Canon 40D – with an eye towards being able to upgrade to a 5D!  I’ve joined Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep as an area coordinatorfor this organization that takes portraits of terminal infants and their families. I started branching out into the wedding arena in January 2008 and have now shot several weddings in the Fresno area!

I don’t have a studio location (hence no ’studio look’), but prefer to shoot on location – whether that’s your backyard, your living room, a local park, down by the river….I’ll even travel to the coast or up to the mountains! I do have a light setup that I use if we are shooting inside or just need a bit of a ‘boost’.

Thanks for stopping by – feel free to leave comments or an email addy – I’ll happily write you if you have questions or just want to find out a bit more about me!