i picked up my camera for the first time since high school after finishing grad school and taking the obligatory european post-graduation backpacking vacation.  i’m sure i didn’t  realize at the time, but within fifteen minutes of setting foot in italy, my life changed.   i spent the entire trip taking photos. my european adventure was like one big scavenger hunt.  i walked down alleys and turned down roads not marked on maps just to see what i could find and shoot.  i drove my travel companion crazy and eventually parted ways in ireland for a bit to give him a break from the constant sound of my shutter clicking.

after returning from europe, i did the responsible thing and got a job.  I worked and horded all of my vacation time so that I could take it in big chunks to go farther away and for longer periods of time.  i traveled between jobs, too.  europe led to japan, which fed my desire to try more adventurous routes to central america and cuba.  eventually I took a break from my career path and decided i needed to do something more difficult and more meaningful and headed off to the middle east and africa for the better part of a year.  i wanted to explore the international scene.  i wanted to challenge myself.  i wanted to see where i might fit and make an impact. and with the folly and excitement usually reserved for five year olds hoping to magically develop super powers, i secretly hoped and wished national geographic would somehow discover me through no real efforts of my own and i’d become this famous travel photographer.  the trip was amazing.  challenging.  life changing.   but.. photography wise, i pretty much only managed to get robbed one day and then quasi-kidnapped the next,  thus donating all of my camera gear to some rather industrious parties in Tanzania.  so much for national geographic.

during this time i was still applying for PhD programs.  11  years of college and $50k + in student loans is not an easy thing to just dismiss, nor are the expectations of your family or those you place on yourself.  in hindsight, i was keeping up appearances.  i suspect now my efforts to study international public health may have been a really backwards attempt to go crazy places so i could continue to take photos under some guise of legitimacy. but back home, i had to pay the bills.  i started shooting weddings after a friend asked me document hers.  I said no.. but at the same time was curious if my skills were up to the challenge.  i second shot a few weddings and was instantly hooked.   three years later, i still hadn’t given up my scholarly identity, and it wasn’t until i officially declined offers from UCLA and John Hopkins last year that i was forced to admit to myself just how much my life has changed.

i am a wedding photographer.  i am no longer a student, i am no longer a future doctor of public health.  i am not even a travel photographer, but “just” a wedding photographer.  for a year i had a hard time saying it without wincing.  deep down, i know what i do is difficult- initially it was honestly 90% of why i got into it.  it’s hard.  it’s challenging.  sometimes i feel like i can score points and win.  i’ve always been competitive to a fault.  but i quickly discovered it’s also emotionally challenging, and that is what has made what i do so fulfilling and keeps me coming back for more.

i second shot for a DC photographer for a bit, and at my first wedding ever, while still in the mindset of weddings consisting of varying combinations of shutter speed and aperture, i walked outside to find the father of the bride alone, staring at the stars.  he looked at me and had tears in his eyes.  i had noticed the empty seat with a rose next to him in the church, as well as the honorary table setting at the reception.  his wife, the bride’s mother, had passed away after a long battle with cancer just days prior to the ceremony.  i put the camera down and he told me about her.  he cried.  i cried.  somewhere in there i was wondering ‘who the heck am i to be having this conversation and experience with him at his daughter’s wedding??‘  but then he hugged me and just thanked me for being there.  that was the first time it hit me how important my job is not just to the people i work with to preserve their memories, but to me as a human being, and how important it is to experience empathy and be moved and be connected to that universal human condition. really, that aspect had no relation to my job that evening, but i am grateful to him and to every family that shares these incredibly joyous and also often heart wrenching moments with me.  it’s totally selfish, but  i am a richer person for it.

while still quietly adding ‘wedding photographer’ only as a footnote to my career, a friend forwarded me an article in the Washington Post by Matt Mendelsohn, an experienced photojournalist that has done more than what most of can ever dream of, who transformed into a wedding photographer.   the article blew me away.  i laughed, i cried.. yeah, you know the story.  while the particulars were different, he summed up the emotions and experiences of so many of the things i’d been thinking and feeling so much more eloquently and powerfully than i could ever hope.  welcome to the brilliance of matt mendelsohn.  call me weak for needing someone to validate my existence.. and insert eye roll from matt right here too, i’m sure.. but i gotta say, it helped.   i was still struggling with my own identity and what i had considered to be a failed attempt at doing something important with my life, but along came this article and suddenly i wasn’t alone in what i was beginning to feel like was a pretty meaningful place in life.

i started stalking his blog, not just to see the amazing photos he takes (because they are amazing) but also to hear what he has to say.  the man can write.  and after some time lurking, i was finally compelled to write him and  profess my love and respect.  i was also going to be in DC and uh, you know, if you like, kinda wanna need some help, i could uh.. i could maybe shoot with you?  i held my breath for a day or two cursing my slobbering, and then the phone rang.

i had the great honor of shooting two beautiful weddings with him this spring.  the funny and witty rebecca and josh were married at the inredible hotel monaco in DC, and gifted, sweet Stacey and Dan were married later that weekend at the historic 6th and I synagogue, followed by a reception at the Key Bridge Marriot.  you can see highlights from their wedding over at matt’s blog.

i felt like a tourist careening through the cherry blossoms and navigating the hordes of people in town for the festivals, and also like a total newbie to wedding photography all over again, just running around with my tail wagging and enjoying the whole experience.  once again, my words will likely fail to explain exactly what it meant to me to be working next to the guy who has been such a source of great inspiration, but suffice to say, it was a pretty cool little circle that was completed for me that weekend, and many thanks go out to you, matt, and of course to the two wonderful couples who yet again welcomed me to be part of such a special day in their lives.