Sarah and James

I remember in this book I read once, called Cold Mountain, one of the characters, Ruby, talks to Ada about living on her own in the mountains of North Carolina. She talked about knowing the place really intimately, knowing just when some of the flowers bloom, when the rain is coming, when the seasons change, just how the animals roam.

When I get to stop and really scout out an area, I feel like Ruby. I get to know just how the light falls at this step and this time of day in the spring, and a hidden vantage point for a this-and-such a shot.

It's kinda cool to know the places around where you live really, really well. I don't know why, I guess it just makes me feel more connected to my home.

So when I suggested to Sarah that we shoot at the new Dali museum, I was glad that she jumped at the chance. One more place to get to know.

She's a medical major, and James is a philosophy teacher (they make you grow a beard before you can start teaching philosophy I think). So he explained Nietzsche to me as we roamed the grounds and took pictures. They were relaxed, and easy, and (best of all) ready to laugh. Can't wait for their wedding!

Sarah and Steven

Each project, each session takes a lot out of me, it has to, else it wouldn’t be art. If it gets too easy, I’m not trying hard enough.

When I get to look at the final collection, up on my monitor, that’s the payoff, when I know I’ve done everything I know how to do to make a collection of great images for my couples, and each thumbnail shows real people, really in love, bursting with color and clarity.

And the gratitude, the thank you’s, they are the icing on the cake. I do this for me, to challenge myself, to push myself further and further and discover new images I didn’t know I had in me yet, and that people haven’t seen yet.

It kinda reminds me of what one of my favorite writers, Ernest Hemingway, in a rare moment of self analyses said,
    “How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.”

 

Leila and Aaron

“I still can’t believe she wants me around”, says Aaron (not me Aaron, groom Aaron), beaming at Leila, his brand new wife.

Leila and Aaron’s energy was unbelievable, their chemistry made the air crackle.

Plus, they’re undeniably beautiful.

Plus, they picked out a gorgeous venue, Town Manor, just outside Lakeland.

Plus, the wedding party was a literal party. As in, they were seriously fun to be around.

Basically, this was a dream wedding to be apart of. I loved being around Leila and Aaron from the first time we sat down to meet to their engagement session to their wedding day.

My job is to be apart of these never to be repeated days for my couples, and you just can’t help but become friends with them, you go through so much in such a tiny period of time with them.

I just couldn’t ask for better people to work with.

 

Tiffany and Jeremy

Call me uneducated, unappreciative, or boorish, but I think most classical sculpture is just plain boring.

You’ve seen them too, the neutral face, carved in marble, staring straight ahead, lips closed, all long neck and flowey linnen. I get it, I do, they are technical masterpieces, the pose is perfect, the face is constructed using the golden ratio, this was so and so’s mistress and oh my I’ve just put myself to sleep.

Then I discovered Bernini. His sculptures are alive, they look like they’re ready to jump off the display and brush past your shoulder, walking away. Oh, of course his pieces pushed the envelope of what was even possible with marble, and still do; they’re technical marvels. But it’s the way he tells a story with his art, it’s the way he echos perfectly what you have felt in the eyes of his creations that catches you, and won’t let you go.

Exciting art, be it in sculpture, photos, writing, or whatever, isn’t content to be technically  beautiful. Just like the pretty girl in high school that was utterly void of personality, you’ll get tired of looking at it after you realize there’s nothing deeper. Good art is like love, it hooks you and glitters with unending nuance, it’s intangible and hard to describe its appeal, and its beauty is its depth.

I’ve got Bernini on the brain because Tiffany and Jeremy are going to Rome for their honeymoon, and they’ll inevitably run across a few of his sculptures. I joined them for their rehearsal dinner and for their wedding day, and I was taken in, right away, by the charisma of their family.

I only have so many weekends to work in a year, and I can only accept so many weddings. So to be able to work for people like Tiffany and Jeremy and spend time with their interesting and engaging friends and family means so much to me.

 

  

 

Cathy and Curtis

I bait and switched Cathy and Curtis. I did, but in a good way.

They booked me early last year and it feels like I’m not even the same photographer I was when they booked me. So much had changed about my work since then, the collections, the website, the blog, even my gear, is newer, better and more clearly a reflection of who I am as a photographer since they signed with Aaron way back when.

I’ve worked really hard (Casey would say too hard, haha) at developing my vision, my technique, my way of working with couples, my art. And I really felt like I was able to give Cathy and Curtis a wedding day gift of a better photographer than they first met.

It’s positively thrilling (I know, I sound like I’m being dramatic, but I really feel that way), to think that the next year will be more change, more work, more development and creation of new ideas.

I am so very much indebted to my brides who have looked, just like Cathy did, at this lanky guy with a pointy nose and a touch of a midwestern accent across the table and decided to trust me with photographing the most special day of their lives.

It gives me the time and opportunity to create, to give animation to the plethora of ideas I have falling out of my head all the time ...and I get to call this my job.