me

Well here goes nothing. 

The last thing I ever expected to add to resume was "Blogger", and for a few reason.  The biggest reason being that I am not good at writing.  Though as my business continues to grow I realize that not only do my "fans/followers" want to know more about me and what I do, but this will ultimately help my business which I have invest so much into. So Let the blogging begin. 

Who is Shannon Squires?  

 Well actually my name is no longer Shannon Squires. I am now known on all legal documents as Shannon Toews.  Toews, pronounced Taves. Don't ask me why, I married into it. It's a name I kinda love because it's shared with my wonderful husband and two little ones.  None the less, my business was established before I was married, and I kinda love the last name squires too, so ultimately I kept it Shannon Squires Photography. 

  I grew up in a small mining town in northeastern Nevada. I had always loved art as my father is an amazing pencil artist. In high school I took many art classes and fell in love with photography. Keep in mind that back then (that makes me sound old) I worked with all film. I loved the dark room and developing my own film. In 2002 I got a scholarship to The Art Institute of Seattle to study commercial photography. I spent the first year there learning on film, and by my second year we were on to digital photography. I still consider myself very lucky to have had the opportunity to have learned on film fist. In art school I had 5 photo classes a week, which equated to 5 photo projects. My school was year round for 2.5 years, so you can imagine how burned out I was by the end of my time there. After I graduated I moved home to Nevada where I waited tables, and spent the summer fighting wild fires.  I considered making fire fighting a career till I moved to Reno with the hope of doing more school, and got a job as a makeup artist for M.A.C. cosmetics. I loved doing makeup and considered making that a career as well.  I moved to Sacramento with M.A.C. in 2008 for more opportunities to grow with the company. I slowly worked my way up the ladder, but found the retail world to be draining. So after 5 years with the company I somewhat suddenly quit and volunteered with a christian organization called Heart to Heart to go to Romania to work with the orphaned. I was in Romania for 6 months and considered staying and working in the country with Heart to Heart. The kids/people of Romania, the country,and  the culture inspired me. I wanted to remember every moment of my time there, so I picked up my camera once again. Long story short, I met my husband through my time in Romania (thats a whole other story for another day), So I moved home and focused on our relationship. In that time I also jumpstarted my photo business what is known as Shannon Squires Photography formerly know as Squires Productions.  Keep in mind that this was now 2010, so after 6 years out of the photo scene I was very rusty. Everything I had learned about digital photography was so dated. I basically had to reteach myself everything, on top of learning how to own/run a business. Boy have I come a long way since then. I have invested sooooo much time, money, and effort in to making this work. Its been a long road but I have loved every minute of it. 

Well there you have it...The short version. 

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