My First Wedding

Michael and Rebecca are friends of mine from college and will be joining me in Memphis very soon.  It was a blast photographing their wedding. 

    

    

   

        

Where I've Been, Where I'm Headed

Hi. My name is Gretchen Shaw.  I just moved to Memphis, TN about 2 months ago with my husband, Mike.  We got married also about 2 months ago, so with that there's been a lot of change recently; a lot of decision making; a lot of new beginnings.  One of these new beginnings is my desire and attempt to begin my own photography business here in Memphis.  Photography has been a love of mine for quite some time.  I took a photo class my sophomore year in high school and from then on have been pretty much hooked.  I majored in Art in college with a concentration in Photography.  I did most of my work in the dark room in those years, and believe that is my true love. BUT, times change and technology changes, and with that I have to change too.  So I moved to digital.  After college I spent a year working on an Indian Reservation in Washington state, creating promotional material for a church ministry located there. And as part of my job, I took lots and lots of pictures; mostly pictures of kids, kids that didn't have many loved ones, if any, taking pictures of them. So here comes my philosophy of picture taking I learned while out in Washington:  While doing promotional work, many people saw the pictures I took, and I saw many people drawn to tears while looking at these photos. Though the pride in me wants to think that this had something to do with my skill in taking these pictures, I know without a doubt that those tears went way beyond just the technical skill.  In every location, in every face, in every pair of eyes that stare through a lens are hundreds of stories. These stories sometimes make us laugh, and sometimes make us even get angry, and sometimes they make us cry. I love helping create these memories and love helping tell the stories.  I hope you'll let me take part in telling yours. 

Below are pictures I have taken in the past couple years...


Yakama, Washington

                    

Places I've been