While all my classmates brought in their stuffed animals and plastic toys for “Show & Tell,” I stood in front of my kindergarten class with a camera.

Thirteen years later, while my high school friends were researching a professional photographer for their senior photos, I was busy searching Wal-Mart for a cheap tripod and trying to learn my automatic-timer camera settings on my Nikon. (To this day, I still love that my senior photos were taken by ME… on the old, wooden bridge that my dad built that connected my house to my grandparent’s house!)

So as you can imagine, before our travel points had even booked this year’s anniversary, I already began to research and price-out professional photographers close to where we were staying.

Although I could justify the price (because, come-on, photography is worth EVERY penny to me), I knew that having someone follow us around on such a special trip would take away from the intimacy of us being totally secluded in a gorgeous location.

So after giving Matthew a ‘heads-up’ that I wanted to try to document a few of our favorite memories together this year, I grabbed my fully-charged iPhone each morning and we carried-on as normal.

This post is to teach you how YOU can also document YOUR special moments…
WITHOUT a professional photographer and
WITHOUT a professional camera!

We were about to head back from a long walk when I turned around and noticed the way the tree limbs were framing the sun-kissed spot where we were just looking for turtles. I asked Matthew to go back to the spot, set the 10-second timer and balanced my iPhone on the tree. (Yes, it took SEVERAL tries. Yes, I would have certainly benefited from the new TENIKLE tripod!)

There’s a conversation-starter question that ask, “If you were sitting on a peaceful porch swing and you knew you only had 2 hours left to live, what would be some of the BEST moments in your life that you’d be most grateful for?”

For me, one of those “best” moments would probably be this particular day on the beach. With our Bluetooth speakers beside us, the breeze kept us cool and the sand kept us warm as we counted sea turtles lifting their heads above the waves in front of us.

I wanted to remember this day forever, so I grabbed my phone, set it on top of my towel and set the 10-second timer. DONE! (If you’re wondering how the background is solid white, it’s because I was shooting towards the sun. The iPhone exposed us correctly and, as a result of the BRIGHT sun behind us, “blew out” the sky. There was a little bit of sand beside Matthew’s arm, but I used a quick editing tool to remove the distraction. And not that you didn’t notice already, but I also ‘softened’ our skin just a little bit!)

In my opinion, the BEST part of being a photographer is being able to see beauty in light, nature, emotions, feelings, well, just about EVERYTHING. But it can sometimes be the WORST part when there’s ALWAYS moments you long to capture.

We had hung-out in this spot for several days (with me, of course, drooling-over the way the rocks framed the bright colors outside). So before our week ended, I (carefully) brought my phone back in the cave with me. Once again, I balanced my phone on the side of the rock and use the 10-second timer.

Whether you’re like me and LOOSE-YOUR-MIND-OVER ‘see’ beauty in the sun hitting a cow’s back, or simply desire to actually BE in more photos, I hope this post inspired you to TAKE THOSE PHOTOS!