Genuine Happiness

A Criminal

My heart was broken today.  I watched helplessly as a young mother struggled to calm her distressed two-year-old daughter amidst a pounding shower of prices and packages entwined with exclamations of “FREE!”  She stroked her daughter’s cheek and smoothed over her tears—a mother’s love flowing from her fingertips.  The photographer pushed and hassled and demanded decisions immediately.  What package would she purchase?  The photographer had to know.  The beleaguered mother sank in her chair, gazing at the photographs of her daughter, wanting desperately to pocket those smiles.  She couldn’t handle the pressure.  $289.99 came the total for a “fine art” package of photographs taken seconds before, apathetically.  I studied the wrinkles on her face.  She wanted them, but she couldn’t bring herself to pay the high price.  “No.  That’s too high,” she kept saying, realizing each time she was letting a picture disappear into the discard file.  The photographer, now salesman, was relentless.  She pushed another price, higher, it seemed, insisting it was the greatest value!  I couldn’t watch anymore.  I turned my head and closed my eyes.  Criminal, I thought.  The mother gave up.  She picked one picture, ordered 5 copies and walked away upset and discouraged.  I could tell by the disappointed look on her face that she did not leave with what she expected. 

“Why photography?”

Fiddling with my father’s camera at a young age, I was fascinated by the buttons and lights and zooming lens.  I would peer through the viewfinder and rediscover the world in an altered vantage point.  I imagined myself in Africa capturing a lion’s roar, or a cheetah’s sprint.  I fantasized standing on the highest spire of a gothic cathedral with one hand holding on for life and the other snapping photographs from every angle.  The life of a photographer seemed blissful, exciting…magical. 

I played with my father’s cameras until I had one of my own.  The camera has never left my side since.  I keep one on me always.  I never know when I’ll see the perfect vista or moment to capture.  It still thrills and excites me everyday to take a photograph.  Many have asked, “Why pursue photography?” I reply, “Because I love it.”    

Not a Fantasy

In college I decided photography would be my career.  Many encouraged me; some questioned why I would spend thousands of dollars on a photography degree.  In many a person’s mind, it is a hobby or easily learned on one’s own.  And while I’ll agree that one can teach himself to be a decent photographer, I will never regret a penny I spent on the lessons I learned from my professors.  My professors taught me how to put my heart into the work.  When I turned in a bad photograph, they taught me how to fix it.  When I would turn in a good photograph, they would teach me how to make it better.  The hundreds of critiques I endured over four years are some of the best hours I have spent toward my career as a photographer.

An Intimate Profession

I have now graduated from college and have been cast into the working world to seek out my place and establish myself.  I have only just finished college one month and one week ago and I am learning quickly that there is still much to learn.

I decided to take a job working in a small photography studio belonging to a popular commercial chain, which will go unnamed.  I wanted to learn more of the business involved in photography.  I spent seven hours in the studio and quit.  I don’t regret it for one second.  I cringed at every sales pitch and ached during every sitting for the lack of intimacy and emotion on the photographer’s part.  Every precious lesson I learned in college was thrown out the window.  None of it mattered.  All that mattered was to make the highest possible sales pitch.  I watched blinding lights flash on the poor babies’ faces.  I felt sympathy for the parents who wanted desperately to have genuine photographs of their children.  I listened to the photographer complain how it’s the parents’ fault the children didn’t photograph well.  How insensitive.  Then she proceeded to teach me how to lie to our customers to make a higher sale. 

There is money to be made in the business of photography, but I could never bring myself to make that my main focus.   I photograph because I love to.  I photograph because of the people I meet and the places I go.  I have been invited into the homes and hearts of people all over the world to capture memories and milestones.  How honored I feel each time to be trusted with intimate moments in a family’s life.  My heart and my soul go into every photograph.  Whether it is a landscape or a family portrait, my heart is in it, and I hope that my clients sense that.  Emotion fills my chest as I think back on every session I have had.  People have opened their doors to me to capture love, birth, and even the fleeting moments before life passes on.  To these people, I thank them for their trust in me.  I could never try to make a sales pitch during these priceless moments. 

I still have much to learn as I pursue creating a photography business.  Some may say I am naïve and romantic.  I know money is to be made and without it I could not continue to photograph, but sometimes I wish I could just say, “The only charge is your genuine happiness.”