My Story

 

I have been a professional photographer for over 11 years. I run a portrait business that specializes in Families, Children and Senior Photography in the Tacoma, WA area. Angela Marvel Photography. I love capturing interactions between family members and giving them images they can gladly hang on their walls and enjoy. But, one of the reasons I first got into photography was for the creative art of it and to create images for myself.

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I started to carry around a camera at age 11. I brought it to school, events and even when I was just hanging out with my friends. I have everything documented from my teen years. Way before that was a normal thing. I  just loved capturing memories. However, it wasn’t until I became a scrapbooker in my 20s that I wanted those photographs to be better quality. My scrapbook layouts use to get published in magazines and to have a better chance of my layouts appearing in the magazine, I needed to make sure my photographs on those layouts were above average. So I learned to improve my photography. That's also when I learned how much of a creative outlet photography could be on its own. It didn’t take long for me to fall in love.

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My interest in self portraiture began in 2011 when I did a 52 week self portrait challenge, where I took a photo of myself each week of the year. When I started the challenge, I had thought I would just take a photo of myself in various places or different outfits. However, as the year went on I found it fun to challenge my creativity by making my self portraits fun. By mid-year I was trying to out do what I did the previous week. I dressed as Marilyn Monroe, was in a fake wind storm, stood as a statue in front of Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, and sat on my own Santa’s lap by the end of the year. It awoke my creativity to do fun and silly photography. The next year in 2012, I did the same challenge but with my family. We dressed in different decades, were in the Olympics, and appeared as vampires, ghosts and more.

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I submitted some of these creative photos to various contests, fairs and shows and won awards. Which inspired me to continue to improve my creative photography to have more chances at winning. That is when I started to play with fine art and composites.  I made it a goal in September 2015 to push myself and try new things. To create stories. By July 2016, I had enough entries for a contest I enter every year. I ended up winning 6 major awards. It was just the confirmation and push I needed to continue on this journey.

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Since that time I have been creating both fun portraits and conceptual work. It’s not been as steady, being a mom of two very active boys keeps me busy. However, starting this year, in 2018, I came back to it and have a strong focus on creating conceptual composites. I created a website, Instagram and Facebook page. I have been submitting to magazines, galleries and contests. But most of all I am getting back to creating art. Creating art for myself