more emotion, please.
2016 was a trying year for me as an artist. I started off the year in Kenya where my lovely assistant Hannah was running the show and booking my clients for me. Being in Kenya was moving and critical in my personal development. When I returned in March, I realized yet again, that wedding photography is not what I want my life to be about in the long term.
So, how do you compromise that realization with having a full load of weddings ahead of you?? How do you get excited when all you wanted to do in the moment was stay in east Africa and abandon your life back home?
You connect with your clients. You find locations that inspire you. You tell dumb jokes to make couples laugh. You make it more about relationships and moments and art, instead of business and work and a basic photo that lacks emotion.
Moments over pretty pictures and perfect lighting and crisp images.
That was my baseline for sifting through thousands of photos from this past year. In the past 3 years of shooting weddings full time, I've learned how to take a nice photo, to incorporate a beautiful landscape, and with that I've also learned how to be lazy. While I've learned HOW to be lazy, I don't ever want that to become who I am as an artist. I desire to be a photographer who captures the moments of joy, laughter, pain, and everything in between. That's what I want to make me stand a part from my peers.
I don't have fancy presets or the time to travel 5 hours every weekend to shoot in the mountains. I don't have a million hours to put towards marketing or emailing or editing, because being a student have proven to be super cumbersome. I don't have it all. But I have love and I have connection, and in this season, I'm learning that's the best thing I can offer to my clients. I can give them images that capture their day, capture who they are, and capture their tribe celebrating with them.
At the risk of sounding cocky, I could provide you handfuls of pretty posed images that I've shot throughout the year. But, instead, I want to provide my audience with photographs that were mostly unposed and authentic moments that happened in the moment, and I was lucky enough to capture it. Sure, you'll find a few "posed" photos below, but that is not the emphasis of this post. Connect, friends! Look at these photos and feel something.
I am beyond grateful for clients turned friends. For times of frustration turned time of wonder.
I get to photograph for a living and..
I am thrilled.
I am lucky.
I am humbled.
I am challenged.
I am growing.
Thank you to every single person who has been a teeny or large part of my 2016 year.
best,
shelby
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