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Originally from Texas, I am a reader, writer, pseudo-gardener, baker, record collecting student working on my Ph.D. in the Midwest.

Friday, October 28

An Engagment!

I don't know if you recall or not, but I have a Life List. You can take a gander at it here.

And on that Life List is "be asked to take photos of an event." I added this about 3 months ago as a sincere wish that someone would recognize my photography and perhaps give me a chance to photograph their event. 

This brings me to this past weekend. One of my friends recently became engaged, and she had asked me if I would be willing to shoot their engagements and possibly their wedding. 

Woah. 

First, it felt wonderful to feel recognized. I think at the core of everything, as humans we all want someone to see us. Really and truly see us and our passions and hopes and our dreams. And while photographing their love may not fulfill my hopes and dreams and passions, I defintely felt recognized. 

Yet, I struggled with it. My heart was saying, "yes, yes! you're wonderful and you are a good photographer. do it." But my brain, oh that rascal, was replying, "huh. you're a student. and not an art student at that. you can't do this. they won't turn out well, because you don't know what you're doing. Only real photographers can do that." And that last comment is the crux of it isn't it? Well, after debating, I finally told my brain to stop. Seriously, stop. If they don't like the engagements, then we will find another photographer. It's okay. 

So, last Sunday, I met with Mary and Shawn at the place where they were engaged and I had the honor to photograph snippets of their love. And I have never experienced something quite as great as that. 

Below are a couple of my favorites, but you can see all of them on my flickr page.




So doing this as brought up some pretty significant thoughts in my heart and my head. 

And I owe it to Mary, for recognizing me.

(I would love to hear your thoughts about the photos - you can comment here or on any of the images on flickr!)

3 comments:

Chet said...

Brains are bastards. They are always doing things they shouldn't. However, it makes me happy to see you doing more photography.

Meganithappen said...

I think these are GREAT photos! Keep it up, sister!

h said...

Engagement sessions work out best when you get along with your photographer. That, and an engagement session is a good way for a couple to determine if the photographer will shoot the wedding in a desirable way. So, I'd say you were successful :)

I helped photograph my boyfriend's sister's wedding this summer, having never done anything so big (and also being a PhD student in a non-art field). It went well. Because, I mean, who really wants to spend $3,000 on a photographer? Because that's what they go for these days...