I began my journey back into photography almost a year ago after at least a 10 year hiatus. Not really sure where I lost the passion…..I guess it was moving to a new state 1500 miles from where I had lived the previous 23 years of my life and diverting into a career that was far different from what I thought I would be doing. I have always had an addictive personality, and I became addicted to moving up in that career….looking forward to and working towards that next promotion. It wasn’t until last year (after 3 years of reaching my “end goal”) that I realized I wanted something more. Helping people meet their financial goals through banking was great, but I wanted to “create” something again. The right side of my brain had awoken again and it needed to be fed. 

I credit a new acquaintance I met just over a year ago, Chris Burkett, with my renewed interest in photography. Chris is the owner of Sacred Rites Tattoo in Port Charlotte which I started going to. After years of wanting to get tattooed I decided to jump in with both feet and start on my first sleeve. I had always feared the stigma that can come with body ink, how it would affect my reputation as a Banker, but you only live once right?! That and I started having a new outlook on life, wanted to make myself happy and not worry about what others thought. Anyway, Chris had recently found a passion in photography. I started following him on social media when he was doing a “60 Day Photo Challenge”. He had a theme each day and had to create an image that fit that theme. I thoroughly enjoyed his work and the passion he was putting into it. That drove me to want to get back in myself and I haven’t looked back since. You should all check out Chris’ work, I will add his information at the end of the blog post. 

So long story short I started buying a bunch of new equipment (too much if you ask my wife) and jumped in with both feet as I do with most things I set my mind too (addictive personality). I have recently started doing some Real Estate and Portrait jobs, as well as shooting several concerts (thank you to Nick and Matt Nemec), and am having a blast with it. After taking photography classes for 4 years in High School and then majoring in it in College, I thought that’s what I would be doing the rest of my life. Unfortunately it did not work out that way as of yet, mainly due to the left side of my brain knowing it wasn’t going to pay me what I wanted to make unless I got really lucky. So here we are, I’m enjoying photography again and making a little extra money doing it. That is the first part of this blog (what this is). I hope my posts are enjoyable and engaging and that you all enjoy my work half as much as I enjoy creating it………..now Caterpilars…..

Ok so this week I noticed that we had some new monarch caterpillars on our milkweed plants around our pool cage. We had a bunch just over a month ago, but then we got some unusually cold weather which I believe killed them since I never found any chrysalis’. So yesterday after work I took out my Macro lens, and got some nice shots of them feeding on the milkweed plants. Today when I went outside at lunch I noticed one was hanging from the pool cage so I knew he was getting ready to build his chrysalis. I brought my camera out and got a quick shot of him with a telephoto lens and went back inside. I came back out 10 mins later and he was already partially done covering himself. I did not realize how fast this process occurs, because by the time I came back out with my camera, he was just about done. It was cool to see him wriggling around and putting the final touches on. I have posted the pics from yesterday and today below. The ones from today are not very artistic, more documentary. Hoping to be able to see him emerge in 10-14 days.

https://www.facebook.com/chrisburkettphotography/

http://instagram.com/chrisburkettphotography