On creating new memories

posted August 23, 2011 in About, Client Resources

We return to a happy place often to relive old memories… like smelling a familiar blanket or hearing an old tune. There’s comfort. We work hard to deserve it. Returning to a happy place lightens the burdens of our lives, keeps the wrinkles at bay, and wine flowing. Some people go home, some to Burning Man. I went to a farm.

In the midst of thinking about big decisions like renting a house, answering craigslist ads about selling stuff, facing new jobs, moving, planning a wedding, making lists of lists… I am reminded by the words of Bueller: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
And while adjusting to challenges in life aren’t supposed to be easy, I remind myself the process of letting go of the old makes room for the new.
Creating new happy places jump spark neurons to create a whole new set of visuals. You don’t have to venture to a tropical destination. For me, riding in a tractor in the middle of Minnesota nowhere {in a total new place} brings a smile to my heart.

Wedding photographer as therapist
As a photographer, I often feel insecure at times to walk into someone else’s world {special place} and interpret what I see… and what I feel. Did I do it justice? Did I capture the feeling they were looking for… or feeling embedded deep in a subconscious decades ago?!?!? Such as a life as wedding photographer. We often step back into a lifetime of nostalgia, of framed-coveted-perfect memories, of heaven as we see it. Such pressure drop on our lens, on our shutter. If only my $2,000 Nikon 24mm f/1.4 could be a therapist.Together, my lenses and I, play 1 part photographer and 3 parts therapist.

Shooting weddings, no different than a candid, off-the-cuff family moment is a challenge I taken seriously — but never too seriously, otherwise I couldn’t do my job as destination wedding photographer. Sometimes I feel scare of rejection, isolation, or loneliness… like a divorce, especially with little repose from the said ‘client’ other than the shun of quietness… which feels like darkness at times (y’all, we’ve been there before like in rain and goulashes and wet pooches…. it sucks). However, on other times, like tonight, I feel 1120% rejuvenated that what artistically creative is sooooo what I should do. There is a moment whereI feel if I can make just one person’s day… just one person… then my day is made. Such is today.

Present memories as a ‘present’
Sometimes we get caught up in the past & forget we are creating new memories in the present. Cheers to celebrating roots of happiness ignited now!
A big shout out to Jake who taught me how to drive a Gator and not look back. Whoot-whoot to new memories on the farm!