Something has been on my mind for a few weeks now. I’ve been dealing and working out in my own way but I have learned that sometimes it helps just to write it down. So this is me writing. Since I began shooting the beginning of last year there have been a few handful of wedding photographers whose work I have followed religiously. Typically I try hard not to dwell too much on anothers work as I want to find my own inspiration through my everyday life. Be it either the music I listen to or even movies that have affected me deeply. But this morning, the morning of my 33rd birthday I rolled out of bed like it was any other day. I put a pot of coffee on and fed the dog. After a quick check of the weather I dove into the morning emails, sorting the trash from the treasure.
A few minutes later I came across a very familiar name and my heart stopped. Right there stopped. The name is unimportant. What is important is that it belonged to an amazing artist, one of the few people whose work has effected me considerably.

The following is a small insert from that letter…

” I get questions from photographers all the time about my processing, so I can only imagine how many you must get, having a much more distinct post processing style. Still that’s what I want to ask you about. I’m not going to ask you about your tones or anything, but I have been struggling with making my images “pop” and I’m looking around to see what other people are using to crisp their images up. I own both TRA sets,  Nik Color and BW Prp and all tools are great. I use them all and know my way around photoshop without actions too. I was wondering if you’ve found a combo you like to get that “pop” without overdoing it.
I’ve attached a couple of images of yours to illustrate what I’m after. If you don’t feel like sharing your secrets, I TOTALLY respect that, just let me know. And if there anything you want to know about me or how I do business, just let me know. Who knows, perhaps we’ll meet one day.”

I was beside myself. HE was asking ME for advice. Are you f*cking kidding me? Of course I spilled everything I knew about anything starting with the third grade but more importantly it only served to confirm that one thing that I had been nagging me for weeks. As artists it is so easy to become desensitized to our own work. Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy with the work I am producing these days and am thankful for the vast improvements I have made since my first Nikon D40 and kit lens.  But I look at others work, such as the person I am speaking of and I find myself in absolute wonder. And envy. And borderline jealousy.

You see, when I was younger I was into magic. Card tricks especially. And for a teenager I was pretty damn good. My classmates would gather around me in the school cafeteria as I amazed the masses with my slight of hand and just as I revealed the ace of spades in the most unexpected of places they would always exclaim “Do it again!” And I would and draw the same reaction each and every time. To them I was doing the impossible in front of their very eyes. But to me it was just a matter of palming this card and hiding it under that one. Not magic. Just a good old fashion parlor trick. Because I knew the secret, the wonder was lost. Gone.

And now I am beginning to see these same principles appear in my work. I know how I shoot. I know how I process the images and therefor it is easy for the appreciation to be lost in the fact that deep down its not magic. Its just a photographer’s slight of hand leading to one big reveal. A culmination of events of sorts.  But I don’t know how HE does his magic and so I am completely overcome with amazement. But even he struggles with “greener grasses” and I am thankful that he wrote me because I don’t feel so alone in the matter. Tonight I will sleep better because of it.

I was recently interviewed by my all time favorite publication, Design Aglow for a feature they will be running in the next issue. One of the questions that really stuck with me was “Clayton, how do you find the people that you have a connection with?” From what little time have in the wedding industry, I have read over and over how typical photographers go through great lengths in order to get to “know” their clients on a deeper level in order to provide them with the right kind of images. Even when I first began this wild and crazy journey the biggest piece of advice I received was that I needed to make myself more available to all kinds of clients. “You really need to expand your client base in order to be available to everyone Clayton” they would say. And still others would say “a job is job” and one even went so far as to call me a “selfish” photographer because I was too picky. He swore it would be my downfall. 
Over time I have come to realize something that has turned my business on its head. And that one thing is this. However important it may be to understand who my potential client is, I know without a doubt that what is even more important is that my potential client know who I am. I guess what I’m saying is that I am who I am. And I shoot how I shoot. I don’t know of any other way so it is important that my couples understand this about me. Not vice verse. They should understand that if they are looking for “bridal party jumping in the air”, or “looking at the camera smiling” shots than I am not a right fit for them (or their parents who never seem to get me anyway). My work tends to be full of passion and sex and intimacy. In truth, a reflection of me.
I work in a bubble. Im a left handed photographer. Which is to say that while I could force myself to write right-handed, physically it could be done. But in the end it just wouldn’t feel right and would come out all sloppy. Being selfish is an amazing thing people. There is something powerful in turning away a client that isn’t a good fit for you. As a result every job I have is inspiring, and wonderful, and fulfills my need, yes NEED, to express myself in this wonderful medium. My couples “get” me. And that understanding  leads to trust which leads to inspiration which leads to beautiful images. There is a fine line between giving of yourself freely and being completely and totally selfish. I have made a home on that line. And its a wonderful place to rest my head…

I took a left off of a small North Virginia road and headed west to a “don’t blink or you’ll miss it” town called Orleans. Many of the store fronts had long been boarded over and the homes were old. Really old. And the trees were even older and you could tell that the roots ran deep in these parts. When Brooke and Manny suggested the century old church and cemetery as the sight for their engagement session I was a bit taken aback. A cemetery? Really? Awkward, yet awesome in an awkward kind of way. Even though I initially had my reservations in the beginning, the moment I pulled into the dirt drive and stepped out into the warm, summer Virginia air I took one look around it hit me like a rock. Well, more like a tombstone.

The church itself was amazing. A single white structure sitting on a lonely hill, it was surrounded by Virgina pine shade and somewhere in the distance the sounds of an untuned steel guitar mixed with the lofty voices of a Sunday morning revival filled with the Holy Ghost. I crossed the yard and into the cemetery and couldn’t help but notice the name and date on a moss covered stone in the shape of Celtic cross. Frank O’Callaghan. April 27, 1847 to March 23, 1863. He was just 16 years old when the Civil War took his life. What a waste. The yard was surrounded by a beautiful stone fence that stood solid in some places and leaned in others but was obviously built with great skill and precision, each stone shaped and fitted into its perfect place among the others. Brooke and Manny met me at the Celtic cross, Brooke in a vintage tan dress complete with her grandmother’s pill-box hat and Manny in a spiffy tweed pin stripe suit and tie that belonged to his grandfather. Certainly the Goodness is in abundance in Virginia.

We talked for a few moments. About life in general but more importantly about Brooke’s infatuation with the 1930’s. “I don’t know what it is about the 30’s” She said. “There’s just something about how even during the hard times people still found a way to be fashionable. To be beautiful even during a time called The Great Depression must have been quite the feat.

I smiled. I liked her way of thinking.

We spent a few moments walking through the yard, stopping here and there to read the engraving of those that came and went long before us. Long before the Green House effect, the Internet, and BP gushing millions of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf Coast. Back when people actually married for life and grew old together. Now I’m not suggesting it was easy by any means. Quite the contrary in fact. But families still ate supper together and children played in the streets and everyone needed everyone else.

The more time we spent in the cemetery the more aware I became of the symbolism of this place. The cemetery, the suitcase. What better way to mark the beginning of a long journey than the same place where you will one day hopefully end it. Together. Till death do you part.
 

On Music

When through life unblest we rove,
Losing all that made life dear,
Should some notes we used to love,
In days of childhood, meet our ear,
Oh! how welcome breathes the strain!
Wakening thoughts that long have slept,
Kindling former smiles again
In faded eyes that long have wept.

Like the gale, that sighs along
Beds of oriental flowers,
Is the grateful breath of song,
That once was heard in happier hours.
Fill’d with balm the gale sighs on,
Though the flowers have sunk in death;
So, when pleasure’s dream is gone,
Its memory lives in Music’s breath.

Music, oh, how faint, how weak,
Language fades before thy spell!
Why should Feeling ever speak,
When thou canst breathe her soul so well?
Friendship’s balmy words may feign,|
Love’s are even more false than they;
Oh! ’tis only music’s strain
Can sweetly soothe, and not betray.

Maya Angelou once said “I long, as does every human being, to be at home where I find myself.”  No matter where I travel in this world, and no matter the wondrous sights these eyes look upon, nothing, and I do mean nothing, comes close to the feeling I get when I pull up to my little blue house in the burbs complete with a white picket fence and Christmas wreath that hangs on the door all year long. Its a beautiful thing and it never grows old. Here I am 30,000 feet in the air and all I can think about is walking through the door, kicking my shoes off in the middle of the living room (even though there will be hell to pay for this later) and finding my sweetheart in the back yard planting something pretty. Its a good life. I am thankful and no man deserves this much goodness in one lifetime. I’m coming home babe. I love you and have missed you till it hurts.