Jose's Homecoming

I once had to work away from my family for a month. That was one of the hardest months of my life. We talked on the phone constantly, we skyped; once Violet came into the room and saw my face on the screen, came over and said hi to daddy, and then ran, looking over her shoulder laughing, this being our game. Daddy always runs after and catches her and picks her up and gives her a bunch of kisses. But daddy couldn't this time. And that really sucked for daddy.

Jose had been in Iraq, away from his fiance, Kristen and his girls for well over a year (Kristen always could tell you on any given day how many days were left). And he came home last Sunday. I had a hard time keeping my eyes dry when Jose hugged his girls and Kristen for the first time in a long time. The whole family was there, hugs and tears all around. And I got to be there to take the pictures. 

Michelle and Sean E-session

Michelle emails me and says, 'we got engaged on a mini-golf course, what if we did the engagement session someplace like that?' ...and images of kitschy video games, tiny golf greens and go carts, go carts, flicker through my mind.

'Awesome', I say, 'let's do it' and in a few weeks time I find myself surrounded by technicolor fun that is celebration station and grabbing shots of Michelle and Sean tearing around the track with huge kid grins on their faces.

They're just a touch competitive...

 ...but that's ok, cause they have awesome energy together:

..did I mention they are a bit competitive?(that's the universal 'she's going down' thing Sean is doing there BTW)

Heather and Ryan

So we walk into the little white chapel in Dunedin to take a look see for Heather and Ryan’s wedding, and it slowly dawns on me that this is some of the best light I have got to work with for a ceremony, like, ever.

Darren (great photog who asked to shadow me for this one) laughing at my chattering ever faster and jumping around because I’m so excited about working here, and it feels like we’re floating in a luminous cloud or wrapped in gauzy sunbeams incarnate and oh my goodness we are going to make some AWESOME stuff here!

Then Heather arrives and she is everything I hope for in a bride: radiant, spectacular smile, and great energy. She and Ryan didn’t worry about what they were supposed to do, they just had great evening with their family and friends. Seriously, these people know how to enjoy themselves. And that makes my job soooo much fun.

Genie and Matt

Hey everybody, meet Genie and Matt. They drove all the way down from Orlando to work with me on their engagement shoot! I am so honored and humbled by how gracious they have been. They are so relaxed and authentically kind people.

Genie plays Pocahontas at Disney, I thought for sure that Violet would think that was like amazing that daddy gets to work with Pocahontas.... Turns out she didn't really care and snubbed me, walking past in her tutu. Unless Genie’s wearing the costume and singing, didn't do much for her. Tough crowd, these 3 year olds.

 

the beach

So we take the kiddies out to the beach after dinner to play in the surf till sunset. We get out to Clearwater Beach, the spot right past the little fire station and Frenchey’s and we walk out past the dunes to the surf. The kids dart straight to the water and get down to the serious business of playing in the ankle deep waves.

Over the seagulls and the whisper (I think I’m supposed to say roar here, but this is the gulf we’re talking about) of the surf I hear german and british accents nearby and I’m reminded of how amazing a place it is that I get to live. I mean, people work and save and pick out their hotels and email their friends and facebook about how excited they are about coming here. Then they fly a quarter of the way around the world to hang out right in my back yard!

The next night, Lisa and Jay got married right down the beach a few hundred yards at the Hilton. They flew in from Ohio, and all their friends and family with them because they thought the gulf would be an awesome place to exchange their vows. And I gotta agree.

Good families make for good families, anybody could tell from a glance how much Lisa's dad loved her.... 

 ...and that Jay's mom thought he was the greatest...

...and that makes for a good dad.

my little girl

My 3 year old daughter, Violet stops, has an epiphany and says, 'everybody don't want to be sad, everybody want to be happy... and have fun!'  Ever the girly girl, she is the absolute essence of young, vulnerable beauty.

As the guy whose job (the dad job of course) it is to make sure that vulnerability is protected, it always feels, just a tiny bit, that everywhere I go with her like I am her secret service guy. She gets to laugh and twirl in oblivious innocence while I'm scanning, always scanning, in between jokes with her, for any danger. And not just the obvious kind of danger like parking lots, crowded supermarkets and kid-head-height-countertops that stick out. The secret service scanning is for not-so-obvious dangers too, like mean kids at the playground that might hurt her feelings or people in public cursing within her earshot, chipping away at her tiny, fragile innocence.

I just had one of my brides send me an email saying her fiance cut it off. It made all those dad feelings and instincts instantly activate. When I met her, she was so young, so vulnerable and so very sweet, it just breaks my heart to think that a boy could treat her so coarsely. I wanted to reach through the email and give her a hug and bark down anyone else that threatened her.

It makes me think back to when I was younger and utterly oblivious to how nuanced, delicate, and complex femininity is. I think I never really got it until my little chicken (Violet) came along and started to grow up and I got to see why girls are girls. And why girls need someone to protect them... or at least why I need to protect my girls.