What is your favorite thing to do with your free time that you're most passionate about? Are you a painter? Do you love to play guitar? Maybe you play some type of sport! These things are often called hobbies. Do you ever dream of actually making money off of the hobbies that you love doing? About 6 years ago in my Junior year of high school, I found what my hobby was. I loved taking pictures! Not anything artistic or fancy, just of my friends and the things we would do everyday. Every time we would go to the mall, or walk around our small, hometown of Peotone, or even just hanging out at someones house, I always had my pocket sized digital camera with me. I went through memory cards like crazy because I would fill them up so fast! What would I do with all of those pictures you ask? I would just keep them. Sometimes I would make little albums with them or create handmade gifts with them, and of course, I would upload them to social media which back in the day, was MySpace! But my favorite thing about having all of those photos was that I could always look back on them and remember those moments. Now that it was six years ago, I am not friends with half of the people in those photos, but the memories are still there. I have photo albums and boxes and ongoing scrapbooks of these photos I've collected over the years and I treasure them more than anything. If there was a fire in my house, the first thing.. no maybe the third thing (after my pup and bunny) I would grab are all of my photos. Not only my own that I took, but my childhood ones too. I think my Mom is what inspired me the most with photo taking. I have photos and videos from every event growing up and from time to time I would absolutely love just pulling out all the old photos and go down memory lane. That is why I love photography so much.
After graduating high school and continued with my love for photo taking, I started to get a grasp of seeing things in a different way. I would see angles and details that no one else would. People were telling me "you have such an eye for photography!" and "your photos look amazing!". So I gained a want to make this hobby of mine more than that. I wanted to make it a service for people. I wanted to capture other peoples memories and moments and give them that ability to look back on them years from now. I started taking senior photos, events, birthday parties, and family photos, and I was getting paid to do it! I actually turned my hobby into a paying job! After a couple months of booking sessions, I thought, I should give my "business" a name. I wanted something unique. It didn't take long and I came up with "Magical Moments with Megan Marie". I went with it for a while, made a Facebook page for it and that is where I got most of my new clients. I had this name for about two years, booked tons of sessions, two weddings, and I started to build my "brand". After a while though, my excitement for the brand started to fall and I stopped "advertising" myself to get more sessions. I wasn't totally in love with the name and everything about it. I then lost some of that passion (but not all!) for photography. I took a break for about five months and started a new full time job. Fast forward to July when my boyfriends sister Jennifer asked me to be the photographer at her wedding! Of course, I couldn't say no! Long story short, that wedding made me realize that photography is what I'm supposed to do in life. This is my calling, my passion, my dream. I was created to capture memories for other people and help them preserve their special events and everyday moments! So then I knew I had to do one thing. I need to start fresh, start everything new, and go BIG this time. That's when I decided to quit my full time job, rebrand my photography business, and finally catch my dream of being a professional photographer.
I spent hours, days, and weeks researching everything there is about rebranding a business. Everything from changing the name, to getting a brand design with coordinating colors and fonts, and everything in between. I also purchased a website that I was the most excited about. I never had a website before, but I knew how important and professional it was to have an actual online home base where all of your clients can search you, contact you, and see all of your work. That was a whole thing in itself. I never had a website before so designing it myself was quite a project, but it's exactly how I pictured it. After all of the countless minutes of creating this new brand and getting ready for launch day, it's finally here. Megan's Forever Photography is born! I can not be more excited to pursue this dream of mine and give it my all! If you are still here reading this, I want to thank you! You stuck around to read about my beginning and now I'm ready to start my future! If you're new to my site, we haven't met before, or you are interested in my work, click HERE and let's set something up! I would love to capture your special moments and make them last, Forever.