When One Door Closes...Break a Window

Good Friday ended up not being too good for me, or so I thought. That is the day I found out that Trinity didn't get the NCAA Matching Grant we had applied for or the other NCAA Internship another group in athletics was working on. So it left me without a job for next year...kind of a scary place to be in.

Jer and I spent that weekend in Houston going over all of our options. Lucky for us Jer has a great job and because he works extra hard, financially we'd be pretty ok if I didn't find something right away.

I was fortunate enough to experience quite a few things during my two year internship, one of which was taking action shots during home sporting events. I really started getting into it and my photos were also improving heaps compared to when I first began. I've always enjoyed taking photos. In high school and college I'd have my little camera anywhere I'd go and plaster photos up on photobucket.

So Jer, knowing me better than I know myself in this case, came up with the great idea of starting my own photography business! It'd be for action shots, since that's what I have the most experience at thus far. We decided on the name Daum Photography! Simple, I know. Jer didn't like it at first, but I think it's growing on him.

That same weekend we went out and bought a camera that would be perfect for action photography. The Sony Alpha 33.

We also got the 300mm lens so I could get those far away shots and they can still come out beautiful! It is 14.2 mega pixels for those high res photos, is lightweight, and has a 3 inch free angle mount which means I won't be cracking any screens anytime soon. I simply twist it 180 degrees and the screen is safely protected. It has a long list of other great features too. I'm going to take some free classes Wolfe is offering and possibly even a photography class at a community college over the summer since I have some extra money left in the professional development fund from the NCAA.

Obviously I have no idea how lucrative this business of mine would be since I've spent the last two years taking photos for free, but we're both really excited to see what happens. Lucky for me, I have amazing colleagues at Trinity too who are also helping as much as they possibly can. I'll still be taking photos for Trinity Athletics this coming year, but the difference is I'll get paid for it! Yahoo! I'll also be getting paid to help Trinity's SID with website maintenance to earn some extra money as well.

The great thing about the new change is I get to set my own schedule. I'll be able to train like an animal and be at the races I'm itching to compete at, which I wouldn't have been able to do due to work obligations at my previous job.

So here's to a great two years as the E-Tern (Emily + Intern = E-Tern), although I'm pretty sure that nickname will be following me around for awhile. I'm really excited to see what will become of Daum Photography!