How I got started with photography

Feathered Photography

Hi! My name is Shealyn Jae and this is my first blog post! Yay! I've been meaning to do this for a while but kept procrastinating. This year is all about taking action (we'll get into all the ups and downs of how I arrived in the chapter in my life later) and right now, it's 2:20am on a Monday and I can't sleep so I figured, let's get this thing started!

Ok, let's take it a few steps back before I got into photography. I was teaching ballroom dancing in New Jersey. When I knew it was time for me to move on to something else, I had no idea what that something else was going to be. All I knew was that I had to leave the situation I was in. So, I moved back to my hometown of Washington, DC. I was 29, feeling lost, and had no idea what I wanted to do with myself. When I moved back to DC, I rented a room in an older woman's basement. We didn't run into each other very often but when we did, she was very kind, witty, and had a great sense of humor.

I remember coming home one day and seeing a box of feathers by her door. I asked her about it and she told me, "Well, if I see a nice feather around I pick it up, save it, and put it in this box. Are you familiar with the movie Dumbo?"

(Ummmmm....HELLO?! I have an obsession with elephants!)

"In that movie, the crows were trying to convince Dumbo that he can fly as long as he had his magic feather. It was really just a gimmick to help Dumbo with his confidence cause as we learned later, he never really needed that feather to fly...but it sure did give him the boost he needed to make that leap! So, I like to give these feathers out to people. They are confidence feathers for anyone who needs a little something to take that first leap."

I just absolutely loved that sooooooo much!!! I had JUST been gifted a camera at the time and decided to give people photoshoots in feathers as their own "Confidence" photoshoots. I have completely embraced the confidence feathers ever since. I even have feathers tattooed on my body so I can carry around my own confidence feather. After doing the photoshoots in feathers, it made me realize how much fun it was to create meaningful images with people and how much I loved making people feel beautiful. That's when I realized this was the next path I needed to take on my journey. I guess I needed my own confidence feather all along as well.