A little history...
It's 4pm on a Saturday in Central Texas in the year 2000, and it's raining. It's late spring, and the humidity and rain is the opening act of what will be a sweltering summer. I'm staring out of the car window in the backseat, watching the raindrops travel down the glass, wishing I was one of them, those droplets, and wondering who else might feel as contendedly melancholy as I do right now...
From a very early age, I always felt different. Where other children wanted to enjoy various and sundry social activities, play sports, video games, or watch movies, I wanted to go for a hike, to lay in the grass at the park and watch the clouds, or to sit with my drawing pad and make a thousand curvy lines just to see what might come out. As the years have passed, I've often wondered if all artists feel the pull of the earth the way I have always seemed to. I've wondered if they are all just as introverted, just as willing to abandon any social engagement for a romp in the forest (or foothills) instead. Logically, I know this can't be true. There are just as many artists who are exuberant, loud, and colorful as there are those of us who are quiet, reserved, and probably a bit awkward, perhaps because we have been making friends of trees and streams for much of our lives rather than people. This small truth about myself, my love for nature, has formed many core characteristics of my personality. I can't say that I became an artist because I'm naturally introverted and drawn to nature, because that doesn't fit the bill for all artists. But my love for nature and view of this world we live in has certainly had a big say in the kind of artist I have become.
It wasn't until my Junior year of high school that I discovered my love for photography, in a dusty classroom in a suburb of Washington D.C. It was there that I found out that, by some mysterious magic, my camera, too, was irrevocably amazed by the sites around me. The spring trees in bloom. The dragonfly on the surface of the water. The single blade of grass that is discolored next to all the rest. I found that my camera could perfectly reflect not only the sights, but also the feelings of the moment. In the dark room, watching the image fade into existence and being flooded with not only the memory of what I saw, but also the memory of what I felt; that is the moment I fell in love with photography. Drawing and writing will always be my first loves, but photography is the unassuming medium through which I discovered what it means to "capture a memory".
The reason why...
When I started my photography page on Facebook, I didn't intend to immediately start a business too. I wanted to put myself out there a little bit, to show my friends and family what I was working on and perhaps receive an occasional seretonin boost when someone said they liked one of my photos. Besides, the number of talented and qualified photographers in the area, artists who have been running the scene for decades or more, was monumental. There was no need for my photography business. Not really. But then I noticed something. I noticed that many of the photos being shared were cheap imitations of the moment. The images were captured perfectly, well-refined and beautiful. Many of them were works of art, literally! But the true emotions that were there in that moment were left behind in the past to be forgotten. The small indicators of what was felt was not reflected in the photograph. The sly smile of a sibling, a tongue sticking out, a flip of the hair, a subtle glance that could so easily have been missed... these are the things that I wanted so desperately to capture, to preserve every precious moment so that as time steals away the minutes, days, hours, and years, people can look back on the moments of their lives as they actually were and remember. My love for nature has taught me the importance of slowing down and connecting to the moment we are in, and it is this lesson that carries me through every moment of every session with my clients.
