In Shameless Adoration of the Love of My Life
[flo_gallery gallery_type=”type_visible_nearby” ids=”756,755,754,757,758″ ]I have dreamed of photographing in Iceland for years and finally the day was upon us. The wind was blowing a gale and the rain pounding in horizontal sheets but Asta Katerine, our perfectly poised model was cheerful and brilliant despite the conditions. The conditions were brutal however and My husband Tom did all that he could to make the freezing weather bearable. The rocks are glorious to see but pure volcanic rock is sharp and rough so Tom carried Asta up almost a sheer cliff so that I could get the shot that had flown us halfway around the world.
I founded 27 Wonders Photography for the chance to tell the stories of the adventure of love. I have always felt one of the greatest gifts of love and marriage is having a sidekick in adventure, someone to take on the world with and never look back. This summer I had the pleasure of shooting with my sweet and incredibly helpful husband Tom and the experience helped to remind me again why I photograph engagements and weddings, why is it such a big deal?
When we fall in love for many of us the improbability of it is overwhelming. All of the elements that had to come together just at that moment for us to realize that this person standing right in front of us is actually your true love. This person that you met in line at the grocery store or on a date with your friend’s brother or maybe he is your friend’s brother, this person should be your family for the rest of your lives. This, to me is one of the most powerful realizations we get to have in this life. At what other point do we choose our family? We may at some point be blessed with the possibility to adopt a child and this, this is neck and neck. But here, at this point of engagement we begin to build a foundation that will need to support not only our children if we choose to have them, but also, someday our grandparents and parents. Our decision to become a married couple is thrilling and daring and an incredible leap of faith.We bring all that we are as individual explorers of this life and forge ourselves into a new entity with the hope that we will be more brilliant beings for it. Are you with me? My mission, the passion in my work is to capture this crossroads for you. To give you a vision of yourselves as yourselves and also as a new creature, a couple with four legs instead of two and two perspectives instead of one, two ideas, two visions of the world.
Marriage as I am sure too many people have told you is not easy. But what does that even mean? I think it means that those moments when we struggle and we are lonely or distant from each other that we have forgotten about the new being, this new entity that we brought into the world. And by this I do not mean a child (although that is a conversation for another day). We have forgotten that a marriage is built out of the entirety of two people joining themselves for the betterment of both. It has nothing to do with perfection. It is our chance to find someone in the world, beautiful and maybe a little bit broken and make a family with them. I choose you and you choose me. We are here to help one another be our best selves. But I digress. I started this post in acknowledgment of my husband Tom, veteran, carpenter, miller, artist, father, who stays up long into the night building me a darkroom and researching enlargers on ebay, who takes our little ones off to the forest for the weekend so I can photograph and who is honest with when he needs time for himself. Whenever things get frustrating or difficult, the albums I have on the shelf of our days rock climbing, covered in chalk and dust smiling and in love, they remind me to play the long game. To remember the power of the revelation that we are family now.
