He took my hand. He didn’t speak much, but smiled and kept glancing at me as we rode the Skylift to the top of Stone Mountain. When we arrived at the top, I was lead to this beautiful spot, overlooking Atlanta on a sunny December afternoon. As I looked at this wonderful man, he got down on one knee, and asked me to be his wife. This Love.

I prayed. I cried. I listened in with all my might to hear the sweetest sound of a welcoming cry. My husband’s voice climbed with excitement as the doctors carefully pulled our little man from my belly. Our lives forever changed. This Joy.

We walk and pursue. A journey filled with daily moments of laughter, learning, laundry, baths, long conversations, open roads, and lots of dark roast coffee. Ten years, four children, and all this Grace.

What do those stories have to do with photography? Let’s start at the beginning…

            As a child, I coveted disposable cameras. Walking into Walgreens and seeing them lined up at the registers. I remember the sound as I wound up the film and counted down the numbers on the back of the camera. The time when one hour development and paying for doubles is where my money was spent. Heaven forbid something might happen to a picture, and if school needed them for a project, I had a protected backup.

            When high school started, I signed up for photography each semester, and those four years, my most beloved time was spent in the darkroom. Getting film on the reels was a thorn in my side, and I was extremely impatient in allowing my exposed images to properly develop in their solutions. Never the less, it was my assignments and completed images that gave me such love and excitement for this art. My senior year I had my first publication in the school art book, and first paid photography session. Unless, I thought, you were a photographer working for National Geographic, this beloved past time could never be a tangible dream. Fumbling throughout a brief time in college, I was bored in my photography class. Our weekly critique wall from our professor gave me a craving for something more than composition rules and depth of field. Where was the connection? Tell me the story. I want to feel something. Is that not the beauty of art? Within two years, my life drastically changed, and the new adventure of being a young wife and moving across the country was before me.

           Besides my pocket Canon, my pursuit of photography was over. We were blessed with Baby one and Baby two within our first three years of marriage, and my faithful Canon followed me along, documenting our days. As Canon grew old and worn, I knew it was going to be time for another trusting companion to come along side me, and help me capture life  with baby three. In 2011, I purchased my first DSLR Nikon. Disappointed in my lack of understanding my camera, I knew that putting it away wasn’t going to be an option. Over and over, image after image, I could see change and growth. The mastery of executing my vision had really just begun.

           In 2015, I put down my insecurities and picked up an old dream. I decided I would rather fail than regret, and would be satisfied with whomever the Lord would bring on my path. Whoever would allow me to photograph their world. 

          So, where do you come in? How are images of weddings, babies, and families this grand thing? It’s knowing that you have shared in moments like myself that are buried deep within your soul. The greatest struggle for any artist is communicating a plethora of emotion, stories, and vision into one single image. I understand behind a portrait, a smile, it represents these collective memories that make up you. I simply display the extraordinary people who I get to know. Some briefly, some become friends, but I do count it a privilege to get a glimpse of your love, joy, and grace. Welcome to Jenny V Photography.