Prop: noun; a support placed beneath or against something to keep it from shaking or falling

       When I first began shooting couples I felt I was kind of all over the place during the session. I didn’t understand the art of simplicity and found myself needing a plethora of inanimate objects to help the session along. A vintage bike. A hat. A picnic basket. A car. Random furniture. And yes, even a piano. Don’t get me wrong. I still love all these things in moderation. Its just that since then I have become more aware of what a couple in of itself brings to the table. The gentle and subtle nuances like the way he holds her hand, the basket weave of interlocked fingertips. The way she rests her cheek on his shoulder, her arms wrapped around his with a fierce kind of love. Above all things my couples have taught me the most about what I love about this crazy gig. And thankfully I have learned to see things with eyes so much clearer and because of this have formulated what I call the rules of one. One location. One wardrobe. One prop. In simplifying things I have become simply aware.
      Lately I find myself excited to see what a couple brings to their engagement session. More often than not its nothing more than a carefully thought out wardrobe, which in my humble opinion is the ultimate prop. Regardless, the carefully chosen prop should be personal and have a story all its own, even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else. But every once in a while a couple will show up with something that really gets my gears going. I can just imagine Greg and Kate rushing for the door, getting a late start for the four hour drive from Dallas to Austin the morning of their engagement session and just as they were about to close the door kate says “Wait, our prop! What do we bring as a prop??” Greg scans the house real quick and his eyes fall on the beautiful quilt thrown across the end of the bed. Their bed. “What about our blanket?” he says. “Perfect” kate sighs with relief. “The blanket is perfect.”  Greg half folds it, half balls it up and thrusts it under his arm as they lock the door and head my way.
       Yes, the blanket is perfect. It smells of home and of lovers wrapped up on a cold winter’s night. It feels like intimacy curled up between toes and after today it will remind them of this day, this moment spent just a few weeks before their wedding day when we all laughed barefoot in a chilly stream on a lazy sunday afternoon. And in the end we discovered that love is like Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. Without it there’s nothing to hold on to, nothing to keep us warm, nothing to remind us of home.

Me: “So trust me on this…”
Them: “We trust you.”
Me: “Cool. I am going to kick water on you now. Its going to be cold. Really cold.”
*pause*
Them: “We’re ready…”

         I love being a photographer. No, love isn’t quite the word Im looking for. But because the real word Im digging deep for escapes me I will use it anyway. I “love” being a photographer. But even more so I love being a human being. In these short two years I have noticed a quite disturbing theme among the wedding photography community. It seems that most, if not all, would have the world believe that they are without fault. That every single client has been amazed by their ingenious work and spotless customer service. No, they have never had a single complaint and they are not only the best in the business, they are, well perfect. I, however, am not perfect. I am just a man who on this dark and early morning hour make the solum decree that though I try my absolute best, my record is not 10 for 10. Hell, I think my batting average has been less than impressive since the day I dropped from the wound. But I try anyway. James Joyce once said that “A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.”
         Those words have never been more true as I approach the two year anniversary of the day that the road forked and I chose to turn left instead of right. Along the way I have learned many things, many a lesson learned more often than not the hard way. But for this I do not apologize. Once I lost a memory card in the middle of a wedding. But then I spent the better part of the night on my hands and knees in a grassy open field with nothing more than a key chain flashlight and sheer determination. And eventually I found that card. Another time I dropped a lens hood down an entire flight of hard wooden stairs in the middle of a ceremony. That damn hood bounced and echoed  down every single step and by the time it hit the ground and rolled down the aisle the entire congregation had turned and was staring up at me in bewilderment. And just before I died of embarrassment I slowly raised my finger to my mouth and said “shhhhhh”.  The bride and groom laughed. Hell, the whole room laughed. And one time I even turned down a client because I didn’t feel comfortable competing with another photographer for their approval.
         If you are a potential client looking for perfection and will accept nothing less than that I’m afraid that I am not your man. Perhaps someone who has already made all the mistakes they are going to make in their life would be a more suitable fit. However, if you are looking for an artist who carries the human stain like a red balloon for all to see, who wants nothing more than to show you his world through a set of crossed eyes and trembling hands, and more importantly wants nothing but the best, not only for you, but for himself as well, then yes, choose me. I can not promise that I will always get it right or that I will be all that you imagined. Hell, I’ll probably make a few mistakes along the way. But this moment, this time in my life is MY time and everything I have done before this day has been leading me to this place in my life. No matter what is said about me, I am hardest on myself. Because every image is a reflection of me, every single image counts. Every couple is the absolute most important client I have ever had. You are important to me because I am not perfect, and despite this you have believed in me. You have trusted me. But most importantly you have seen that I am not perfect. I am just a man. And THAT is the sole reason you have chosen me. May this confession paint the picture you came here to see.

I feel emotional right now. You know, the kind that leaves an itch in your eyes and a lump in your throat. Sometimes I feel as if I have so much to say and not enough words in the world to do that thought the slightest justice. But I try anyway. Sometimes thats all we can do. Try. And even then words often fail me. What am I suppose to write right now? Do I talk of love and butterflies and pretend that Doug & William are just another couple in love. Pretend that they are no different than any other couple I have photographed? Maybe that’s what Im suppose to do but I can’t be sure. So, in this case I choose to call out the elephant in the room and say that on the contrary Doug and William are in no way similar to other couples I have had the honor of meeting. On the surface it may seem the same and sure, we can throw around the typical “love is blind” cliches, or we can grab the elephant by the grey wrinkled trunk and scream “You’re an elephant!”. In this case two grown men who above all costs have chosen love. I am an american. I have served my country as a medic in the Army and I have served society risking my life for strangers since I was old enough to even work. But on the morning of this session I was saddened that this country I so deeply love has its moral compass so far up its ass it doesn’t know which way is which. Leonard Matlovich once said  ”When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.” How is that for perspective? This isn’t an argument about religion, or politics, or what we were raised to believe. This is simply an anthem for love. For those who risk it all in the face of picket signs and constitutional amendments to ask that one person who gets you, no, I mean truly gets you to risk it all for the touch of lovers lips. When you wait your whole life to find that one person, and despite all odds you open your eyes in the middle of a field with the faint smell of rain on the wind and see that person smiling back at you, you dont have to wonder anymore. Deep down your soul does a cartwheel because the long, lonely journey is finally over. May we all experience that moment at least once in our lifetimes. May we all be so blessed. Doug and William have never been married and have no children. But they do have each other.  And if its a choice then the choice is simple. They choose each other.

“They are preserving the sanctity of marriage, so that two gay men who’ve been together for twenty-five years can’t get married,
but a guy can still get drunk in Vegas and marry a hooker at the Elvis chapel! The sanctity of marriage is saved!”

Its one of those places that as you drive by you think to yourself “If walls could talk….” The windows had long been boarded up and the steps leading up to the leaning front porch crumbled at the slightest breeze. Most people in our neighborhood look upon it as if its some sort of eye sore planted smack dab in the middle of their picket fence suburbia. I have driven by it hundreds of times and had always been curious as to the wonders that lie behind the rotting old privacy fence that separated its rusty secrets from the soccer moms and blue collar dads that loathed it so much. Then one day, on a whim, I decided to pull over and take a walk along the rail road tracks that lead to the side and down behind the property. The first thing I noticed was 4 or 5 large heaps scattered across the unmanicured yard and covered with thick black plastic anchored by rotting rubber tires. A dog barked in the distance and even though the house had long been abandoned I couldn’t help but feel as if I was trespassing, well, I mean besides the obvious of course. I looked around one last time just to be sure I was indeed alone and when I had convinced myself that there wasn’t anyone watching from the broken attic window, I reached down and rolled away the tire holding the weathered tarp at the corner. As I began to pull back the layers of time a rusty chrome fender revealed itself followed by a powdery blue door accented by spots of oranges and yellows. It was beautiful. Like a work of art painted by Father Time himself. Within a few minutes I had uncovered four rust heaps of goodness, each one more amazing then the previous. It is no secret that I love old things. Partly because all things nostalgic remind me of my beloved grandparents and partly because I have an inept ability to personally relate to things that others discard without a second thought. Maybe one day someone was planning to come back for these cars. Maybe there were plans being drawn up at this very moment to restore the Oldsmobile or the Pontiac but more than likely they would remain here until the city condemned the property at which time the cars would be carried away and sold as scrap. I once read that “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” Or maybe it was in a song. Who knows. Either way when Tanner and Stephanie told me they would fly in from North Carolina for their engagement session and that they were really drawn to my “nostalgic” vibe I knew that what they meant to say was that they shared my love for old things. And for new beginnings…

“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.”

“A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.”