In early 2020, I took nominations for a gift session I called Goodness Goes Viral. My intent was to gift a pet photography session to someone who made it part of their every day routine to be generous with their time and their heart. It was an extremely difficult decision, but ultimately, a lovely person by the name of Jess Barnhart was gifted the session. And then...the world shut down.
Now, I could just as easily say that the session never happened because of COVID. But the truth is, Jess and I pinged each other here and there, but life had simply decided to throw us some curve balls much more personal than a pandemic.
As of today, the session has still not happened. Nor is it likely to ever happen. Did Jess tell me to kick rocks? Did the session expire? Nope and nope. Did Jess open her very own photography business??? YES!!!
Meet Jess! She is the photographer behind For The Love of Paws, LLC, based out of Anamosa, Iowa.
She photographs pets and people and pets and their people! She photographs kids and newborns. She photographs families and couples. She photographs almost all of it!
If you follow her on her Facebook page, you'll know just by reading her posts that she pours her heart and soul into her business and her clients. You'll know that she is exactly the sort of person I was looking for!
If you're in need of a photographer in the Cedar Rapids area, check her out. She may also be the sort of photographer you're looking for!
For now, Jess won't be using my gift session because she is quite capable of photographing her own dogs, but if she wanted me to make good on the gift session, I would definitely stop on over and put her and Gary in front of my lens. For the record, that's her dog, not her husband. Husband's are extra.
