Stephanie Miles

My first encounter with photography was in high school photography class. This was back before DSLRs, when film was precious and every photo had to be painstakingly developed in a dark room (not to be confused with Lightroom… sorry, photographers joke :). I remember developing my first motion photography shot of a boat perfectly in focus with a deliciously blurry Muskoka background. That was it, I was hooked. I had the photography bug and my teachers kept saying I had a natural talent that I should pursue.
However, as much as I loved photography as a creative outlet, I was constantly reminded to focus on “what's important in life”. Work hard to pay for university, get a business degree and find a good job at a stable company with benefits. As much as I resisted, and believe me I did, somewhere along the way I eventually accepted this philosophy as an unfortunate reality of life. I got my business finance degree at Western and fell into a corporate sales role. Luckily, that wasn’t the end of the story!
My relationship with my husband JP, and travelling the world after university helped me to plant seeds of clarity and gain some perspective on life. It was a slow process, and it’s still unfolding to this day, but little by little I started believing that turning your passions into a career may actually be possible. Seeing JP boldly ignore the advice of pretty much everyone in his life and follow his passion - starting a successful photography and video business - was the final aha moment!
In 2014 I quit my corporate gig and we made the life changing decision to move to Costa Rica.  Hoping to get back into photography, I invested in a camera, a couple of really nice lenses, and my first ever Mac. After re-learning the basics and getting a few lessons from JP, I was back behind the lens, re-building my skills and feeling a sense of happiness and fulfilment that was missing for so long.
Today, I support JP as his photography assistant and a second shooter on any of our commercial shoots, and in my spare time I shoot more artistic photography and sells prints.  I enjoy shooting nature, wildlife, surfing and portraits, but with a slightly artistic perspective. I love exploring light as a means of painting a picture slightly different than that of true reality. I’ve coined it my photography art series. Insert eye roll from JP here...