Who: Julie + Ben
Ceremony + Reception: Veteran’s Terrace Burlington, WI
Cake: Nothing Bundt Cakes
Caterer: Chef David’s Catered Events
DJ: Howard Productions, LLC
First Dance Song: From the Ground Up Dan + Shay
Who: Baby Emma + Family
Where: Private Home Wauwatosa, WI
I turn 40 years old this year, a fact that I still have yet to completely wrap my head around and embrace fully. It’s awful trope-y and cliche to be all “OMG, over-the-hill…FORTY! Just take me out back and shoot me now!” but, I can’t help but feel like that last twenty years has flown by so quickly that I scarcely had time to stop, breathe, and look around a bit.
As is evident from the various blog posts I’ve written over the past decade, I’ve often struggled with my place. I’m one of those people who wants to do it ALL. I didn’t want to leave any one daydream untried….for fear of missing out on any opportunity. This has sometimes led to some hilarious and embarrassing foibles. It led to lessons. It led to wisdom, in some cases.
I’ve been a professional (I hesitate to even use that word even now, twelve years in…isn’t that weird? Why are we so self-depreciating?) photographer for over a decade. I’ve photographed over 200 weddings, countless events, portraits, headshots, and hospice patients. People have used my images in magazines, advertisements, even headstones.
It’s a career that I, quite literally, wandered into haphazardly. My husband bought me a camera to take pictures of our new baby (who is now nearly a teenager) and within a year I had lost my crappy insurance job and decided I didn’t feel like going to get another one. So, I decided to learn how to use my camera and there you have it. Career. Artist.
But, I never considered myself an artist. God no. I was useless artistically when I first started. I had an eye, for sure. But artist? No. I was a mimic, at best. I would look at what other professionals were doing and I’d do that too because they were getting hired….so they must have been doing something right.
All of that vigor and excitement for something new seems like eons ago. It’s 2 more children ago. A lot has happened since I first started booking portrait sessions for $75 a pop and getting so thrilled to be getting PAID to take pictures that I could have cried.
We’ve moved.
People have passed away.
My daughter was diagnosed with two life altering illnesses.
We opened a store.
We sold a store.
I’ve had three studios.
I’ve made friends.
I’ve lost friends.
I started a volunteer program that’s made national news
I’ve tried my hand at other jobs that I thought, naively, if I DIDN’T try I’d always regret it.
Turns out regret works both ways.
I’ve served some incredible people that I never would have met had I not picked up a camera.
But never once have I considered myself an artist. I’ve just become less of a mimic. I’ve come into my own. I’m at a place now where I can look at people who are just starting this journey and understand where they are and how they feel. I can also give them advice on where they may find themselves down the road, should they ask. I can write blog posts like this and hope someone takes them not as doomsday prophecies, but as truth as I see it.
The industry has changed radically since I first started. When I opened Type A in 2008, Facebook was an unsteady toddler. Business pages were such a new thing that no one knew how to do them right. I remember seriously sweating how many “likes” I had (we called them “fans” then….remember that?).
I couldn’t tell you how many “likes” my page has right now.
Instagram wasn’t a thing.
We had “rockstars”…..not really influencers, though it’s pretty much one in the same.
Everyone was still a photographer, much to our chagrin. Even though we were mucking up the industry as well. We….my friends and I….we were somehow different. When we talked about “everyone’s a photographer”, we weren’t including ourselves.
With turning 40 has come the realization that I am no longer the new, shiny penny in the local industry. I’m not the cute 23 year old hipster with a film camera on one shoulder and a Madewell catalog in her $700 camera hobo bag (yeah, that was snarky….guilty). Those are the darlings of the industry and probably rightfully so. So many of them are so talented it hurts.
Honestly, I never was that person. I saw an opportunity when I was 28 years old to make a living taking pictures for people and I took it. I never gave much thought to my image playing a role in my hire-ability, which any good marketer will tell you was probably a huge mistake.
And that’s probably why at 40, I’ve taken on a part time “real job” and photography will likely never be my “one and only full time gig” again. It’s a young person’s game….and evolution has happened. I can’t be an artist when my daughter needs insulin and the mortgage needs to get paid.
Once the influencer culture started to grow (think “infest” rather than thrive, I suppose)…..I realized I was probably out of my league. I could continue to serve the people who wanted images and storytelling at a fair price, but the rest of the game was going to have to go unplayed. I didn’t have time to be strategic, nor did I have the energy, even though I knew it meant being passed up by younger, cooler, more savvy photographers. They were all in their wildly excited prime. I knew how they felt and it was their time.
So what’s my point? My point is, on my way in to my day job today I started to think about 40. And I started to think about the evolution of my career and whether I needed to be ashamed that it’s more de-evolved than anything. Was I okay with that?
I’m okay with that.
I’m okay with only shooting 10 weddings a year instead of 30.
I’m okay with a regular paycheck based off work that has absolutely NOTHING to do with my “dream” or what I may or may not be “meant” to do.
I’m okay with the fact that BECAUSE of this day job, I’ve been able to REALLY focus on the kind of work I actually want to do because I’m not sweating just booking anything and everything to survive.
I’m okay that because of a day job, I’ve actually started to write. Something I’ve wanted to do since I was eight years old.
And maybe that IS evolution.
Evolution is discovering that we are all just doing what we have to do to survive. To feed our kids. To pay the bills. To stay just a bit relevant. When the first ape decided to stand up in the grasslands to see farther in search of food, that was doing what they needed to do to survive. Evolution.
It’s very few of us that are going to be anointed as exceptional. Just like when I started, there’s 2 or 3 rockstars and then there’s the rest of us. Getting by.
So…..I turn 40 this year and it’s going to be a good year. Crossing the threshold into middle age is giving me quite a bit of clarity into purpose and what’s important and WHO I AM as an “artist”.
I hope in 2020 and 2021 to partner with clients who see that too. Who see that, at the end of the day, I just really want to do a good job for them. That’s it. I care about their events. I care about their happiness. It’s important to me. It’s that simple. No fluff. No mess.
Simple as possible is the name of my “game” for 2020. That’s my version of evolving.
Simplicity.
Because, when I shoot something and it comes out exactly how I saw it in my head, I still get a thrill.
It still makes me happy to hand over work I’m proud of.
I still cry at father/daughter dances….no shame. I have daughters, it comes with the territory.
The love is still there, the dedication to the craft.
Dare I say, the artist in me still has a few rounds left in her.
Who: Amy + David
Where: Beloit, WI
Who: Gina + Max
Where: Chicago, IL
Guys, I think it’s been almost a year since I’ve done one of these. At LEAST 6 months. This is completely indicative of the kind of year 2019 was. It was such a cluster that it feels like I wasn’t even LIVING in it…..we were surviving. That’s it.
I am so damn happy this year is almost over that I can’t even properly express it in words. This year SUCKED. There’s no other way about. It was awful.
Winter 2019 was ROUGH. For one, it was colder than I can ever remember it being. So much so that the kids’ schools were closed for over a week straight and we were all stuck inside. No one was booking any work with me because no one was doing ANYTHING with weather like that and….well…if I’m not working I’m not getting paid, right. So yeah……winter was HARD.
When it thawed, I had hope on the horizon. Wedding season was about to start……senior season was about to kick off…..thinks were gonna start happening…..and then the rug was pulled out from under us:
Molly got sick.
Like, really sick.
She was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and what the doctor suspected was Turner Syndrome on the SAME. DAMN. DAY. Needless to say, that day was awful. As a rotten cherry on our crap sundae, my grandfather died the next day.
Yeah.
We spent 4 days in the hospital with Molly and then tried to adjust to our new normal. Finger pricks, injections, appointments to find out WHAT variation of Turner’s she had (she ended up with one of the most rare variations. Figures.)
Surgeries scheduled.
And then….I had to figure out what I was going to do. I couldn’t exactly keep plugging along with a job that was, at it’s best, feast or famine. I needed something SOLID. A paycheck that was reliable. As much as it pained me….after over a decade of self-employment….I went to find a 9-5.
What I ended up going after was something in healthcare administration. It’s what my educational background was in and it’s something I’ve always had a heart for. Working with the elderly was always something I had a strong interest in. I had attempted it a few years ago only to find it disappointing, to say the least, from an administrative side. But I was willing to try again.
I took a job at a small, privately owned memory care facility. I instantly fell in love with the residents. They were, however, the one bright spot in an otherwise dark stint. Nearly as soon as I took over as Director of this facility I was staying late…..working shifts for no-shows….and, the worst of it, getting texts and calls 24/7. All hours of the day and night. It completely took over my life….which at the time needed to be focused on Molly. The expectation was to leave Type A behind 100%….and the closer I got to working my last weddings of 2019, the sadder that made me. The sound of my phone alerting to yet ANOTHER message from work began to give me such anxiety that I was barely sleeping….and I was short with everyone. I was exhausted and wildly unhappy.
It all came to a head when I was, legitimately, faced with choosing between the job and my kid one night.
And I picked my kid.
I had to. If I learned ANYTHING from this wretched year, it’s that it all goes SO fast….it can all change on a dime….you have NO control sometimes and all you can really do is your best.
I quit…..I got home…changed my ring tone (because holy crap, Pavlov was right)…..and started a new job a week later.
The new job gets me home by 4:30….I’m never on call….Type A can flourish….and I get every Friday off.
It’s what I needed. It’s what my FAMILY needed, and I can’t express to my new employers enough how thankful I am that they took a chance on me.
So….Type A is alive….and WELL. I’ll be taking about 12 weddings in 2020…..I’ll be continuing Seniors and Portrait sessions as normal. I’ll have a 3 day weekend every weekend to concentrate on creating….spending time with my kids…..and LIVING again.
2019 was a big ole ball of suck.
But, I’m closing it out on a high note and I have great hope that 2020 is going to beat it by a mile.
We have another Disney visit in the works for this spring. I have some plans to FINALLY visit Green Gables in Canada for my 40th. I got to take Molly to see Hamilton for her birthday this month.
It’s looking up….and all we can REALLY do is shake off mistakes…..count our blessings…..and keep swimming.
