It’s Been In There
This year has been an exercise in survival for me. Survival of my business, of my family life, of my soul. There are times I have felt like the world is swirling around me so fast that I didn’t have the energy to reach out my hand and grasp even a tiny part of it. By all outward appearances, my life seems pretty perfect, and to some people, it may appear downright idyllic. I have a beautiful family, two perfect little girls that fill our lives with laughter and snuggles and sweet insights into this crazy world they are exploring anew each day. I have a loving and supportive husband, and when I say supportive, I mean that in every possible sense. He provides a beautiful home for us and patiently puts his heart and soul into being a father and husband every single day. My business saw its busiest year ever, and I literally had more business than I could accommodate in 2015.
But despite all outward appearances, I have been aching for something I couldn’t quite articulate. There were times this past year that I have never felt so low. Times when I crumpled into a ball on my bathroom floor and cried. Evenings when I left the dinner table and thereby all the clean up and child-rearing to my husband for the rest of the night. Times when I just couldn’t function. Every year, the time right before Christmas is crazy for photographers. Every year, I know that I’ll get through all the edits, emails and orders. But this year was different. This year left me bitter, heartbroken, and utterly exhausted. And it’s nobody’s fault but my own.
I’ve been so overwhelmed by the tornado of everyday life, and “business,” and by what I’m supposed to be doing, that I’ve put on the blinders and I’ve let it all overtake me. I’m not seeing like I want to. Not feeling like I should. I’ve let the “industry” take precedence over my instincts. I’ve let some clients and yes, even friends, take complete advantage of me. I’ve let what I’m supposed to shoot take priority over what I need to shoot. And what I need to shoot is what feeds my soul, what I feel when I’m absorbed into a moment and overwhelmed by love and beauty and light.
I attended a conference last week in Portland, Oregon called Mystic Seminars. It was a great week of connecting with some old friends, meeting new faces, and revisiting some of the reasons I left the rainy northwest (the sun came out for about two hours out of the four days). But in between all of this, I sat in lecture after lecture listening to artists talk about authenticity. They talked about moments, anticipation, instinct, reality, mystery, and fear. They talked about shooting through the chaos and standing still, about moving and seeing a scene from every perspective possible. They talked about getting close and stepping back, about getting low and way up high. But mostly, they talked about life, about journeys, and about how their personal experiences have caused them to grab onto their cameras to see life in a different way and to express its beauty and heartache and humor. And somehow, I have to get back to that place.
It was that place that caused me to pick up a camera in the first place, being so overwhelmed with gratitude that I just wanted to somehow articulate that feeling. And somewhere along the way, in between the f-stops and technicalities of business and assignments, I lost sight of why I truly love photography in the first place.
Today I went back and sifted through thousands of personal images from 2015. I found an image that caught my eye, and it was an image I hadn’t really paid much attention to when I first edited photos from this set. It’s a photo of my youngest daughter, her hair swept by the Wyoming wind, her eyes closed toward that wind and her little hands caught mid-movement as she settled in to pose for the camera. It stopped me dead in my tracks. I immediately had to do something with it. My husband came in and looked at it over my shoulder. He asked me where it came from, and I just replied, “It’s been in there.”
Because it has. That image, and everything it represents — imperfection, peace, and most importantly, authenticity — has been in there all along, waiting. Somewhere along the way, I learned that I had to deceive, to hide flaws through this medium that tells truth so very well. To make it all look perfect. And while I realize this is all very esoteric and strange in print, you will see my business take a different path in 2016. I’m focusing on that wind, the undercurrent of emotion and life that pierces our everyday moments. I’m going to stand still and wait and be present so I can hear and see and live through moments with my subjects. I’m going to move to get a better perspective and to see things from a different angle. Because I want to see my clients, I want to know them, and I want to communicate not how their experiences look, but how those experiences feel. I’ll be focusing on photos that make my heart sing, and I’ll be clearing out the parts of my business that are taking up too much space on my proverbial plate. I need to make room for moments, both within my life and within my clients’ lives.
