It all started in elementary school...

We want to take a moment to share the reason behind our business. Why do we do what we do? But we realized in order to do this, we have to first go back to the beginning. And in this story, that just so happens to be Bekah's elementary school days.

[Bekah]

I remember the day fondly. We were given career aptitude tests, and my fellow classmates and I were buzzing with excitement to find out our results. In our minds, these were going to tell us exactly who we'd become. We had dreams of being doctors, firefighters, writers, and pilots. We imagined all the ways in which we'd change the world.

The teacher called us up, one by one, to hand us our printout. We each had our top three career results listed on the paper. Finally, my name was called. On the top of my paper were three words in bold.

Author

Photographer

Teacher

At the time, I didn't think much of that. I loved to write, and thought for sure I'd be the next Mary Higgins Clark (my favorite author back then and still today).

I enjoyed a disposable camera as much as the next kid, but that was about as far as my photography went.

Teacher? Nah. I had dreams of becoming a nurse, like my mom.

It wasn't until high school that I really started to dabble in photography. I would set a timer on my little camera and run to get in front of whatever artsy backgrounds I could think up. See the photos for proof. Oof.

Apparently I was "moody" before it was cool.

At this point in my life, photography still had no place in the career realm in my head. I fully planned to go to college to become a nurse.

And then I had a baby at age 18. My whole world changed.

My Kyla. My sweet little girl.

College became a distant, fuzzy thought. "Dream jobs" seemed impossible. I got jobs as a waitress and did what I needed to do to make money and graduate high school. My photography hobby was put into a box and set aside.

It wasn't until 4 years later that I decided to pick it up again. This time it was more out of money-saving necessity than anything. I had just gotten married, and we had just had our second baby. At that time, we couldn't afford to get professional photos taken of him as a newborn. And I SO BADLY wanted those photos. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. Pinterest was still fairly new and starting to really take off. I had saved so many ideas that I was dying to try. My equipment was a crappy phone with very poor image quality, and a free photo editing app. Still, I made the best of it, and they are still photos that I will forever cherish.

That year on Black Friday, I purchased my first professional camera from Ebay. It changed everything. I took pictures of anything I could point my lens at. Friends started to let me use them for practice. Then I went public. The Focal Point Photography was born. My first ever business. I spent YEARS trying to build momentum with it, and just when I was starting to get some... BOOM. My life turned upside down.

My first marriage ended, and I slipped into a deep depression. I was always taught that marriage was for life. Divorce was not an option. I felt like a failure. I didn't know how to get out of that dark place. I didn't care about photography anymore. My passion for it fizzled out.

After that, I took awhile to try to work on myself and work on my relationship with God, which had really suffered in my depressive state.

And then, Caleb came into my life.

He was an actual answer to my prayers. Within the first day of meeting him, I felt like he was someone I had been friends with for years. We spent hours talking and laughing. We both KNEW that first night we met. You know the old saying, when you know, you know. Call us crazy, but it really was love at first sight. We shared our hopes and dreams with each other, and he became the person who encouraged me to pursue photography again.

After we got married, I picked the camera back up. Just when my passion started to reignite...BOOM! Covid.

Ugh.

When the whole world shut down, I decided to see it as an opportunity to grow both personally and professionally. I pursued education in photography. I wanted to learn everything I could about it. Lighting, composition, posing, editing, business. I tried to really hone my craft.

At that point, I thought it would only be fitting to change my business name to something that felt like a fresh start. Something that was more personal, more real. The Focal Point Photography became Rebekah Espinoza Photography. I could not be more proud of how far it has come.

Within the past year, Caleb has gotten more and more involved in the business. He learned the camera and got comfortable behind it. He became my second shooter for bigger events and weddings. He has also dived into videography, and is learning and growing in it more and more every day.

It really only made sense to change the name from Rebekah Espinoza Photography, to simply, Espinoza Photography. It's not just me anymore, but a combined effort between the two of us.

But we still haven't told you the driving reason behind our business..

In our opinion, to simply have a business for the sake of making money would be a wasted opportunity to have a positive impact on others. Remember how I told you that my elementary school class imagined the ways in which they'd change the world? Everyone wants to change it in some way or another. This is our tiny way to try to do just that.

We have a passion for couples. We want to be a positive impact on them. Not just while we're taking their photos, but for life. We want to be a real life example of imperfect, forgiving, beautiful love. We don't want to display some cookie cutter image of how perfect our relationship is, because it's not. Marriages, relationships.... they are HARD. They take work. Our human nature causes us to screw up sometimes. Those screw ups can be small and simple, like forgetting an anniversary, or they can be MASSIVE and complicated, like a betrayal. We want to show that love can ALWAYS find a way through. Even when it's hard. Even when things feel lost. We want to hold your hands, be there as your friends, and be a source of positive encouragement for your relationships. We want to capture your engagement sessions, wedding days, and all of the anniversaries after. We love documenting genuine joy in relationships. We want to freeze those moments in time where you're giggling at each other's corny jokes, dancing to a soundless song, and soaking in each other's embrace. We want you to have those moments for life to look back on. In the good times and the bad.

While couples are our passion, we do it all. We photograph children and families. We've added two more babies to the mix in the last few years, and we have a brand new definition of the word "tired". We want parents to know that even if they don't have "a village" they are capable of more than they think. The stress will go away, the kids will grow, and you'll be left with those photos on the shelf from the day your child refused to sit still and smile. The day that you stressed over to get the perfect outfits was not, in fact, ruined by the child who was more interested in running like a mad man through the grass than getting the perfect family portrait. The chaos is what made it perfect. Believe us, we know.

We do solo portraits, branding sessions, and headshots. We truly want to make every client of ours feel their best. We have each struggled with our own body images. We know what it's like to see a photo of yourself and cringe. So we make it our mission to pose thoughtfully to flatter our clients, and we tell terrible jokes or dance around like lunatics to see you smile. The REAL smile.

If you've made it this far, thanks for sticking around. I know to you it was probably just a simple link click, but to us it is pure GOLD. Your support of not only our business, but of US means everything.