I believe that all people enjoy looking at photographs in some way, shape or form.
They enjoy looking back at days gone by, they enjoy laughing at funny expressions, or old hair styles. They enjoy catching up on relatives or friends who are far away or they just don't see often enough. Many people are moved to tears by the love expressed in engagement portraits and wedding photos. Others find solace in portraits of grandparents, families and babies. No matter what viewing a photograph creates an emotional reaction.
That reaction, whether it be joy, celebration, solace, laughter, and, yes, sometimes even sadness is what drives Leitzke Photography.
Leitzke Photography actually started long before I was a Leitzke. As a pre-teen I followed the really "cool hippy" neighbor woman around while she took pictures of everything and everyone, and then developed the film and printed the pictures - I was hooked! I babysat for her kids and eventually "earned" her retired Nikon SLR.
As they say the rest was history. All part time jobs went to pay for new cameras, equipment, and developing supplies. I took every photo class my high school offered and when the new building was built with a dark room I was the one and only person who knew anything about it and it became my home away from home. Yearbook photos, school newspaper photos, freelance work for the local paper graduated into family pictures for friends of my parents and anything else people asked me to photograph.
As a senior in high school I went to a new school with an amazing ex-newspaper guy as their photo teacher, he soon became my favorite teacher of all time. He always had time to answer "one more question". I pursued photo-journalism at UW-Whitewater but it was institutionalised photography - not what I was dreaming of. I hired J. Little Photography as my wedding photographer and soon thereafter began working as his apprentice. After child number two I left J. Little and the busier I got the more my "photography" time became about just my kids and my family. It wasn't until my daughter's wedding that I realized just how much I missed the joy I feel watching people look at pictures I have taken for them. We will call it my reawakening. Since then I have replaced the old SLR with a digital SLR and have begun the road to rebuilding my portfolio.
Lots of photographers promise proofs 3-4 weeks after the shoot. I say that too - but between you and me I can't wait to get home and proof the shoot because I am ALL about watching the reactions of the subjects as they look through the images!