01/20/2024
Full Circle. (Part one of two)
Back in mid-2000, I was freshly graduated from college and instead of going on to law school, I moved to Fiji instead. It was there, surrounded by truly wild, lush and vivid natural beauty, that I decided to become a photographer. I had a cheap point and shoot camera and I remember how disappointed I was every time I got a batch of film back because the photos never looked how I imagined they would. The extraordinary landscape around me that I so desperately wanted to capture was eluding me. I didn’t know anything, really, about photography.
Fast forward 6 months. I came back to the US and enrolled at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara where I deep dove into a formal photography education. I didn’t want to be a good photographer, I wanted to be a GREAT one! When I left Brooks, I was finally on my way to being the artist I always wanted to be. Simultaneously, I had to figure out how to make a living with the thing I fell in love with. And, photographing beautiful landscapes didn’t seem like a viable option.
So, in 2003, I opened my wedding photography business. In, 2004 I moved back to Denver where things took off like wildfire. For twenty years I grew as an artist; I grew as a business owner; I grew as a human. I honed and mastered my craft through hundreds of thousands of images taken over hundreds upon hundreds of weddings, engagements, and other photo jobs.
I photographed weddings in every scenario you can imagine from mountain tops to wine caves and every place in between. I shot massive weddings, tiny weddings, backyard weddings, celebrity weddings, ballroom weddings, beach weddings, rooftop weddings. And all of this in every kind of light and weather, running the gamut from incredible to horrific.
I had drunk guests hit on me, step on me, knock my light stands over, spill on me, and yes, even puke on me. I wore the hat of photographer, therapist, wedding planner, seamstress, guest wrangler, child whisperer, dog handler, friend, confidant, interference runner, and miracle worker. It was more than just an artistic endeavor, it was a multi-faceted juggling act…
(Cont’d in next post.)