What is a recipe doing on a photography blog, you might ask? Well, as much as I do like baking, it's not a recipe for food. I've been pondering how to kick off my photography blog. And as I was baking cookies with my toddler earlier this week, I realized I want to introduce myself as a recipe.

Liz Krainman, the photographer

yield: one serving

2 cup artist
2 cup technology nerd
2 cups mom

Place all ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Stir well until combined. Let rise for for several years in Utah, transfer to a new bowl in California, then finish off by baking in the oven in Texas.

That right there is what makes Liz Krainman, the photographer.

Okay, corny intro aside, at least I've broken the ice. Right?

Let's start with two cups artist.

I've always loved art. My entire life I've been into the arts whether it be visiting fine art museums, painting on canvas, interior design, graphic design, or even crafting with friends. You name it. If it's a creative outlet, I've likely either dabbled in it or rolled around in it blissfully since as far back as I can remember.

Yet despite clearly being heavily right brained, my left brain is constantly tied neck and neck for it's place in the forefront of my life. I love, and I mean *love* technology. (Are you there, Napoleon Dynamite fans?) Seriously though, I love figuring out how things work and troubleshooting things systematically. I love the square peg that fits into the square hole. I love binary 0s and 1s. The majority of my schooling and career until kids was as an IT manager.

So I'm a technology nerd. Two cups of that.

To an outsider, the act of taking a "good" picture may just seem like taking an expensive camera, pointing it at something decent and then pressing the fire button. Technically, that qualifies as taking a picture. But to me, creating images in my version of photography is far more exciting - and complicated - but that is how I like it. I have an expensive camera, sure. But take a minute to look over a DSLR these days. Even an entry level one has about a billion buttons, a billion settings - a bajillion things that you need to understand just to control it for that basic clicking of a picture. And if you want to do anything with it outside of an auto function, you are likely going to need to understand a whole lot more than just clicking a button.

You have to understand how to make your camera behave in a way to unleash the powers that it's immense technology has to offer. You have to compensate for lighting that isn't ideal, change the shutter speed, ISO, and f stop, calibrate your white balance appropriately. You have to know what type of lens is important, what focal length is appropriate, and what brand of lens offers the best bells and whistles for your needs. Oh, the technology can make your head spin. And the camera technology does not even account for that which goes into the post-production manipulation of the image once it's been taken out of the camera. That requires some pretty complex computer applications like Photoshop or Lightroom which are just as powerful and equally exciting to me. It almost seems like there is an infinite number of things to geek out about.

You see, there are so many technical aspects that go into a single, final image that it satiates the left side of my brain almost entirely. Pair that with the right side of my brain and I've got it all. I like to think that the camera and it's complex settings are my paintbrush, and the light, subjects and scene are my paint.

Now the last part, the absolute icing on the cake, I am a mom to two miraculous little kids.

Two cups mom.

This is a topic I plan to blog about here soon since my mom story is kind of a unique one. I actually had blogged for a few years about my journey to motherhood in my personal blog, Wishing on a Snowflake. But in a nutshell, we fought for these two kids. We fought hard. We fought for many years and endured multiple losses and heartbreaks which finally led us to these two perfect kids we have today. And because of that twisted and painful path, I marvel in every single moment of their childhood. I relish in every single moment of motherhood. I look at the world differently. I see love differently. I know that which is a blessing.

And I see it in a literal sense, through my lens.

I love the special moments in all of our lives, the relationships, the genuine smiles, the all encompassing love, accomplishments, and milestones. I recognize the moments that need to be bottled up and treasured forever. I adore the simplicity in those moments. And I try to pull those moments for others into my images and deliver them to my clients to treasure forever.

So that is me. An artist, a lover of technology, and a mom who knows never to take a single moment in life for granted. You can't begin to know how giddy it makes me to to have a high tech piece of equipment in my hands to create beautiful art of and for my clients to treasure for years and years to come.

So much sweetness