storytelling . . .

there are times, i admit, that i am obsessive about things.  cheese, martinis, the future, office supplies, laughing, working ~ the list is endless.  yes, sweet internet, i have quite the addictive personality ~ i think every bite will be as good as the first one!  and, as i contemplate this little piece of me ~ that makes me ~ me, i realize that it is often what pushes me.  it does!  it pushes me to be right, to be better, to have more, to enjoy more, to live the way i want to live.  it pushes me to be different, to be creative, to get it right.  i think all of my past clients would agree that when I say, “just one more,” i don’t really mean it.  i just keep pushing until i really feel like i have captured their story just right.  when i am with a couple, i don’t want to just come to the ceremony and be their photographer and give them a few images so that they can remember that they said, “I DO.”  No, in my obessive nature,  i want to catch that flirtatious smile in their engamement pictures, so that they can remember how they used to laugh together.  i want to help a bride pick out her jewlery, her high heels, her favorite lingerie and create some sexy images to give her man, so that they can remember how hot it feels when they touch eachother.   i want to meet their families, know where they came from.  i want to be with them when they see eachother for the first time.  i want to catch that sweet smile that her father gives her when he sees her all in white, and that moment when he gives her hand to another man, i want to get that moment too.  the exchange of rings, the first kiss, the first dance, and the goodbye, i want to have it all ~ get it all! 

 i think that in my nature, i am not always satisfied with the status quo, so it is only natural that i would see that reflected in my work as well.  i think though, that until recently, i never saw what i was doing as work.  i love what i do.  i love everything about about it.  i love it. somewhere along the way, though, what i do has become more that what i thought i was doing.  and now . . . i am not sure anymore.   i think over the past months, i have become tired.  not weary of what i am doing, but tired in my mind, and i am finding it difficult to come out of.  in my addiction to blogs, Tara Stroka from Pink Ink wrote this, ”  Every photographer/artist now and again can experience burnout. It’s hard to avoid this feeling when you are so passionate about your art. According to the Mayo Clinic burnout is a state of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion caused by long-term exposure to demanding work situations. Burnout is the cumulative result of stress.”  i NEVER see my job as being stressful, but then again, i always think that three cosmopolitans would be better than two. 

last weekend, i was so honored to be able to take pictures of a sweet sweet 10 day old baby.  i was the photographer at her parents wedding, and so it was so beautiful for me to see her lying on the same chair that i had laid their wedding rings on the day they were married.  we got so many beautiful pictures of her, but one image continued to stand out to me, and it wasn’t until this moment that i understood why.  in these past months, i have really been trying to become a better photographer.  to learn my camera.  to learn the light.  i have been learning technique, and it is here that i got lost.  to me photography is storytelling.  it is seeing an emotion or a feeling on paper.   it is a memory forever held close to us.  it is about remembering what we see and feel at that exact moment.  its about a story.  yes, i think the actual capturing of the image itself is technique – something i always be learning, but it is what the image says to me or to you that keeps me alive.  you see, lately, i have been trying to hard to get the “POSE” perfect, that i forgot that what i really wanted to do was remember a moment, a moment in time that eventually would be gone. 

thank you sweet hannah for allowing me to catch this very special moment between you and your mama.