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Photo Cred: Jessie Raetz, intern
I feel as though I am continually re-evaluating my world. Sometimes, I finish a "scene" in the movie that is my life. I am starting to see that my life is actually a series of projects...I guess as a kid I thought that there was the "kid" level......and one one special day, I'd LEAP up to the "adult" level, and things would be perfectly even and consistent all the way into old age.
I am blown away at how often I am shown that life isn't anything like how I thought it would be.
There are WAY more choices.
About EVERYTHING... I make choices about having a clean sink or what papers to have on my tiny desk. How to spend my time, and what to type next.
A camera up to my face allows me to SAY with my EYES what I can't say with words.
I've officially quit promoting weddings as my "bread and butter" focus. That "scene" is over. The lifestyle of a wedding photographer is intense. I felt so pulled to champion for brides...so that they could see images from their wedding and SEE what I saw. Because I realized at some point in my early 20s...not everybody sees what I see, how I see it. And I thought they should be given a chance to. I see beauty EVERYWHERE.
After more than a decade, something inside me started changing. I wasn't as inspired by the emotions and gorgeousness of a big wedding day...my eye started to get distracted with other things that I hadn't even noticed before. A large portion of guests also document the wedding....the wedding parties seem to have, too. So many beautiful faces aimed down at glowing screens. Ipads held up high in the air throughout rows of seating. My eye did not feel as special anymore...everyone was doing it for themselves. I felt pangs in my stomach as it dawned on me that I don't want to capture that, and I don't want to adapt my style to dodging it either...
There are more emotionally engaged, artistic wedding photographers in our industry, available to hire at all price points, than ever before! Certainly more than when I was a bride. Now, more than ever, wedding photographers are shooting with their hearts. I can move onto another subsection of photography that DOES need me...and THAT is a very exciting search to begin. I have spent the summer taking any gig that EXCITES and INSPIRES me...I'm in a free and spontaneous segment of the movie of my life now.
From photographing the MOST artistic and vibrant seniors, to creating the most beautiful portraits of sandwiches that a "mom and pop" sandwich shop ever saw, the only requirement right now is that I'm stimulated and challenged by the project...
To boudoir images in drag car race shops, to nervous yet heroic medical imaging techs posed like rockstars in front of their equipment (can't show you those yet)....
Oliver's Sandwiches, Edgewood/Milton, WA
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I am enjoying the lack of restrictions, and after years of having most photoshoots scheduled on weekends, when my kids now ask me what's going on "this weekend", it never gets old to reply, "Hmm let me think? Nothing....."
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