What’s in a name?

I get the question a lot: Why is your business named Mady Joe Photography. Here is the explanation and little bit about my journey with photography!

I know you’re not supposed to have favorites when you have children. But I do. My son is my favorite for certain reasons and my daughter is my favorite for others. I love that they are so different. My son is quick, smart, and mischievous.  My daughter is polite, sweet, and loving. My son loves construction, trains, big trucks, and Miss April {his teacher}. My daughter loves all the big trucks and trains because her  big brother does, but she loves teddy bears, Winnie the Pooh, Abby {our dog} and sharing bites of her food.

I wanted to do a post like this for my son’s birthday, but in between sessions, homecomings, my husband changing jobs, packing, moving, and unpacking,  I was lucky to pull his party together! And it’s kind of fitting that I do this for my daughter as she was the true catalyst for me putting a little faith in myself and starting on the journey into photography. For a solid year after she was born,  I tried and tried to get the same pictures I had seen photographers use on their websites, and a picture that my son was NOT blurry, using a Nikon point and click. I kept saying with every trip {really, every time I used our camera} to a local portrait studio that I could do their job and get the pictures I wanted of my children, but in other environments than a studio. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to spend the money on a nice SLR if I wasn’t going to be good at it. Then I just decided that I had saved us enough money nursing my daughter for a whole year versus the money we spend on formula with our son and I deserved to try something I thought I would love. Lucky for me, my husband agreed {or he was just tired of listening to the constant debate of buying a SLR and which one I wanted and why}. So off we went to Colonial Photo and Hobby and came home with my new camera body and new lens. I WISH I had the pictures from the first night on this computer, but I think they are on a CD in a box somewhere…..

So, as my daughter turns 2 I keep being bombarded with memories. When I found out I was pregnant, how I cried in fear and my husband grinned;….. when we found out we were having a girl and my husband cried;….. when my labor was stopped at 31 weeks, the day before our son turned 2;……all the doctors appointments and hospital trips;….to the second I saw her and all the caution I held for 38 weeks trying not to love her too much because my pregnancy was so tough I didn’t know how it would end, came crashing down as I held her;…..the first time our son saw his new sister and gave her the teddy bear he made her {obviously she loved it as now she loves all teddy bears!} and all the moments in between then and now. Our son I wanted desperately and our daughter terrified me because I didn’t want to experience a loss again and I wasn’t sure I would know what to do with 2 children, but does anyone really know 100% what to do with any child?

So, why Mady Joe Photography? Mady is my daughter and Joseph is my son’s middle name. Joseph was also my grandfathers name, the man that always had the SLR and took all the pictures. He’s the one that let me play with his camera and tried to tell me not to turn my head looking through the viewfinder {too bad I still do it!}. I have his Pentax film SLR in my closet. I’ve thought of using it, I hoped to find some lost film with pictures on it, but my grandfather was not the one to forget something, so there wasn’t any long lost film. Maybe one day I will use it, but for now I like just being able to look at it or hold it and know that he was the last one to use it.

To remember Madelyn at almost 2 I wanted just some pictures of her making all her funny faces, she thought lunch was funny today, so here are some I loved!

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