Today we’d like to introduce you to Gwen McDannell.
Hi Gwen, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Why do I care about art?
lets start by talking about when I was little. I had an older brother who passed from muscle disease, but one of my earliest memories was the one time when my mother made spaghetti and I painted his walls with spaghetti sauce. My mom came in and said who did that? and I blamed him. The orange sauce on the wall was the height of me. That right there just tells you I was the next Picasso at a young age of 4.
My passion is to always create new things.. I’ve Done photography all my life. Every Christmas growing upI would get a new camera. I recently got a blogging camera, but I’m getting a new one because that one isn’t good enough for me. I can be a perfectionist, but I will see a photo in my head and I will make it possible. I’ve always been a go-getter and 99% of all my ideas in my head I can make come to life.
I’ve been doing photo shoots ever since I was little with my childhood best friend Ana. We would walk 5 acres of woods behind my house to a cornfield out back of the house and take photos and photos and photos. There was never a time in my life where I wasn’t taking photos. One time I had my dad take a ladder to the cornfield and a speed limit sign at sunset to make a shoot happen (it was a really cool shoot)
For school, in the second grade, I started a small business of making bookmarks for kids and selling them for paper money, through middle school and high school I would paint my book bag, paint friends phone cases, Did artwork for teachers, I would opt out of projects and get to do art work to show that I understand books we read in English class. The silver lining in all these stories is being creative, photography, Art has always been a part of my life, and I use it in my daily life even to this day in or outside of a school building. I take photos of anything and everything, my brain works as a camera and I’ve studied the camera so much and can talk about the functions of a camera, color theory, photo and video editing, why lightroom is such a good editing app, how to make your instagram feed aesthetic, why you need a Pinterest board for inspiration for all your photoshoots and pretty much anything involving art for hours.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No not at I started at Hacc as an education major and realized quickly (but not fast enough because I took some classes that I later on didn’t need and effected my GPA) I just wanted to do art. I went through a depressive episode and had no idea how to navigate college so o took a break then came back as an Art Major and never regretted ever since. That being said though over the last few years I been trying to fix my GPA the young, depressed freshly out of high school little girl messed up. If it wasn’t for her I won’t have went out of my way to heal her.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I do photography mange social medias for small businesses, the most well known one is Bantam Coffee Roasters, oil painting. Anything creative I most like did it or what to do it.
Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
One of my earliest memories was the one time when my mother made spaghetti and I painted his walls with spaghetti sauce. My mom came in and said who did that? and I blamed him. The orange sauce on the wall was the height of me. That right there just tells you I was the next Picasso at a young age of 4.
Pricing:
- Do a photoshoot with me starting at $20 an hour
- Content creating/media $20 an hour
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gwen_smilingphotography?stkn=Z21mZjJhOWtyNjUy&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1M2vFqWz8b/?mibextid=wwXIfr
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/gwen_smiling?stkn=Y2huaHZhejNqdWsz&utm_source=qr
