January 19, 2016
I have always loved looking through my parents and my grandparents wedding photos. When I do, I feel like I’m connecting to them in a different way. They are no longer mom, dad, grandma, or grandpa; they are just two young people sharing their vows and starting their new journey together. I told my grandmother that I love every chance I get to peruse through my family’s wedding photos. After hearing this, she gifted me a photo of her on her wedding day.
I LOVE this photo and every time I look at it, a million thoughts run through my head.
She’s so beautiful!!
What was she thinking?
How was she feeling?
Could she imagine the future that lay ahead?
Did she ever fathom that decades later her granddaughter would be looking at this photo?
I’m sure none of those thoughts filled her mind on her wedding day. She was just excited and anxious to marry my grandpa. She was just being herself in that moment and the photographer captured it. To her, it might have felt like an insignificant moment but after it was captured it became so big and so great. Because that moment can now be shared with her family. That moment can be passed down for generations. That moment can transcend her life time. That moment can help all of us remember her. All that, because a photographer decided to snap the shutter.
Every time I look at this photo, I’m reminded why I became a photographer. Not for the pretty styled shoots or the awards. Not for creating my own work schedule or getting my work published. Not for the recognition or the praise.
I became a photographer to celebrate love and tell the incredibly important story of the people who lived, fell in love, and started their life-long adventure together. I was born to do this; to be a storyteller of the human spirit.
I want to celebrate love because I believe it’s the strongest emotion, the only one that can really, truly change the world for the better. I became a photographer to create genuine images of love that will transcend time and remind couples of how happy they were on the day they said, “I do.” To give their children and grandchildren a glimpse into where their loving family started. To console others and give them something to reach for in times of hardship to remember their loved ones.
I believe people are important – how we lived, how we loved, how we affected the world. Each person and each love story is so incredibly unique and special, they all deserve to be preserved, shared, and passed on.
Because of those reasons, I take my profession as a photographer very seriously and realize that every time I go out to shoot, I’m going out to capture a moment in time. I choose to give my couples and families timeless, genuine images full of real joy and love because I know one day they will pass these photos on to their children and grandchildren.
I want their grandchildren to look at their images the way I look at my grandparents’ photos and see them in a new light; as two excited, anxious young people who fell deeply in love and started their incredible journey through life together.
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