Something has been brewing in my brain in the past week about photography and why I love it…why its important to me personally, apart from business. Something struck a cord when I saw one of my 2011 brides change her profile picture on Facebook to a picture of her and her grandpa dancing at her wedding. It was a picture that I had taken. That week her grandpa had sadly and unexpectedly passed, just a few short months after the wedding day.
Pictures are memory holders for me. A single image can often bring me right back to an experience, so strongly that its like I’m seeing that moment flash through my brain for the first time. That is what makes photographs so powerful and meaningful for me, and why I love to create those kinds of photographs for other people.
The funny thing is that often, the photos that strike that cord in me and seem to contain moments of time are not always the photos that you would expect to be able to do that. They’re definitely not always of people smiling and looking at the camera, often they aren’t technically perfect. They are always triggers because of the way they capture the feel, the emotion and the detail of a moment that you want to hold on to…those moments that you try to visualize so that you’ll remember it forever. Sometimes without capturing a photograph those perfect and important moments are lost, or at least diminished in our imperfect memories.
Last night I looked through the last few years of our personal photographs. There aren’t as many as you might think! I have to admit that before I started shooting weddings full time, I had my camera out way more often…really, always. In the past 5 years or so I’ve taken way less personal photographs, which is something that needs to change (actually, I’m sure it’ll change when we have the baby, you know I’m going to be one of those crazy camera moms!) I pulled out a few photos from the past 4 years that are powerful to me. You’ll see they’re not perfect, and most of them won’t make sense to you as ‘powerful’ but that doesn’t matter, because they’re my memories and no one else’s.
The first night after moving to Unalakleet in 2007, Jamie and I had gotten engaged about 8 weeks before.
Winter in Alaska teaches a new appreciation for the sun. This is us on a snow machine ride out of Unalakleet in February. One of those ‘umm…is this my life? How did I get here?’ kind of moments.Paris, on our honeymoon. Amsterdam, also on our honeymoon…this is not a technically awesome shot (obviously) but I’m wearing TWO rings in it, and I look pretty happy about it.Our first married Christmas with Jamie’s family. When we got there, Norm just curled right up to Jamie like he never wanted to leave.
My grandma and grandpa’s house in Minnesota, I hope I always remember it like this.One of my favorite trips with Jamie. Cold and rainy in Newport RI, eating some of the best clam chowder I’ve ever had.We took the train into Grand Central at 5am. I felt like I was in a movie.He looks like one of those keebler elves, right?! I loved this photo instantly.Blackberries in my mind = BC in summer, and being engaged.Our second anniversary. I love this one for no reason I can put my finger on. Its our desktop right now.Coffee date in Milwaukee.
Me and my momma in Mexico last February! Take me baaack…..At a market in Oaxaca last springTwo of the sweetest boys…also in Oaxaca.Lost in New York.Sweet home Chicago! My sister took this one when she came to visit once…downtown, freezing cold, a billion Christmas shoppers, perfection.I’m working on another post…a kind of ‘part two’ to this one. Its got a hundred wedding images right now (literally)…I guess I want to show you more about why I shoot weddings the way I shoot them, why sometimes the unexpected, unplanned, unposed photos are the ones that have the ability to speak, and therefore why I think its such a good thing that wedding photography has been evolving into something different in recent years.

SO if you’re interested in that, stay tuned! As long as theres no baby, I’ll probably be posting that in the next couple of days.