Fractured Thoughts ~ COVID-19 Lockdown Update

Welp. Here we are, day 45.

Feels like SO much longer. I’ve run the gamut of the grief process….because, let’s face it…it’s not being dramatic to say we are all grieving in some way or another during this:
Some of us are angry.
Some of us are in denial.
Some of us are depressed.
Some of us are getting around to acceptance. Slowly.

I’m not sure where I am. It changes daily. We were supposed to be in Disney right now, as I write this. A vacation partially funded through an incredibly generous gift given to us after the absolutely abysmal 2019 we had. Bridgie was supposed to turn 4 amidst Princess visits and fun cartoon rides. Instead we Zoom called with the family and I made the ugliest homemade cake ever created.

Not only that, I dreamed of taking a vacation to Prince Edward Island since I was 8 years old and became all out obsessed with all things Anne of Green Gables. I FINALLY bought that plane ticket to celebrate my 40th birthday on the island.

And that’s not going to happen.

I was invited to speak at an End Well conference in L.A. this fall.
That’s probably off.

So, grieving. Yes. All the while recognizing DAILY how fortunate we are to be healthy, fed, clothed, and alive right now. It’s such a jumble of emotions that at the end of the day I just feel TIRED. That’s the best explanation I have.

Most of my summer weddings have rescheduled. Their plans held in a sort of stasis. Guest lists getting slashed. Everything being pared down to the absolute essentials.

My Class of 2020 Seniors didn’t really have a senior year experience to speak of. No prom. No graduation ceremony. I can’t imagine what that must feel like. You work your whole childhood towards that moment of freedom and accomplishment…..only to have it ripped away. It makes my heart sad. I love being a part of celebrating senior accomplishments.

I, like everyone I suppose, am just OVER this. Over it.

But, I don’t necessarily want the “before” back exactly the way it was…well…before.
I want to LEARN something from this.
I want to be better from it.

Here at home we are making some decisions that could radically affect the next two years and then the next 50 (more on that later as things evolve….how is THAT for vague-blogging?! Guess you’ll have to just keep reading……HA!)

Here at home we are working on potty training for Bridget, navigating at-home-schooling (not a fan, gotta say)….trying not to kill each other.

I never realized how LOUD everyone was when they ate. My god.

I haven’t written A THING…..I can’t. My brain is broken, it seems. Part of the Covid effect on my mood.

THANKFULLY, my husband is still working full time from home. I am putting in part time check-in’s here and there with my job in Oregon…..and restrictions on shooting are loosening a bit so Type A should be back in full force soon (here’s hopin!). We are okay. I know other people are not okay, so it makes my mixed jumble of feelings every day worse. A sort of “survivors guilt”, somewhat. I know lots of people that this is devastating financially. And it seems no help is on the way. I sit with that and that’s when the anger comes. It shouldn’t be like this.

and I miss a lot……

I miss shooting so much.
I miss visiting people.
I miss going into a store and shopping without having an all out panic attack
I miss knowing what day of the week it was and having a SCHEDULE
I miss stores having Cherry 7Up in stock (who knew that would be something to become scarce. Like, WTF universe?!)
I miss looking forward to things

But, I do also believe that soon this will be in the past. We will emerge from our fortresses, bleary eyed and having forgotten how to properly drive a car. We’ll walk around on our shaky baby legs, unsure of how to proceed.

But it’ll be in the past. Someday.

Someday, all of this will be a story. And that’s what keeps me getting up every day.

Fractured Thoughts ~ COVID-19 Lockdown Edition

Well, I’m sure I’m not the ONLY one out there whose thoughts are sufficiently fractured these days, eh? I mean….Jesus. What a week.

Over here in the Reseburg household we are hunkering down (the word “hunker” is having a moment right now). With Molly being high risk, we can’t take the chance of exposing her to anything. So, the husband and I…the three girls….the two dogs….a partridge in a pear tree….are all cohabitating 24/7 for better or for worse.

We are all finding our own ways to cope, at this point. Molly and Bridget have rediscovered their love of The Greatest Showman soundtrack. Betty is drawing away. Jon is pretty much single-handedly keeping his work afloat as their resident Zoom and Yuja expert. I am working Type A and my day job at the same time, editing my last wedding…wondering if wedding season will even HAPPEN this year (I am hopeful….I am).

We cancelled our upcoming Disney vacation. I’m likely going to cancel my much anticipated Canada vacation that I was going to take for my 40th birthday. I had been dreaming of that vacation since I was 8 years old. I finally scheduled it after hemming and hawing for years…..and this happens. Its like an Alanis Morrisette song.

But, I’ll get there. It just may not be when I expected to go.

I’m trying my hardest not to let social media and the news rile me up….but with little else to do….it’s getting to me. I admit it. I can’t watch the news anymore. It’s too upsetting. Social media isn’t far behind. I’ve always had a “love/hate” relationship with certain social media platforms. Being in business for myself in this day and age, I have to use it or lose it honestly. But, there seems to be an endless amount of idiocy and tone deafness going on as of late and I can literally feel my blood pressure rise whenever I log on. So….maybe unplugging for awhile wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Anyone else feeling that?

We’ve been playing some games with the girls (Pictionary namely….the husband wants to try Cannasta. Because we are pensioners now, apparently). I’ve been (unsuccessfully) trying to get a Twitter campaign started to get Disney to release the Hamilton Movie early.

Everyone tells me this is a time to slow down. To be intentional. To plan. To rest. But, with all the uncertainty out there? With everything bad amongst the little that is good, I’m struggling. I struggle with the fear of the irresponsible actions of others affecting the health of my vulnerable child. I struggle being in an industry that is not a necessity right now….but still needing to make a living, pay my bills, and support my family. I struggle knowing we are so fortunate in so many ways but there are so many out there who are not. Worrying about that keeps me up at night, because I feel helpless.

So if you’re struggling too? If you wake up feeling a mixture of fear, weariness, grief, and worry? You’re not alone in that. Not by a long shot. Everything is terrible right now. It’s okay to just say that and acknowledge it.

On the Type A front, I’m making plans to bounce up whenever this has passed and people start to need services again. I’ve kept the Spring Forward Sale up so if people WANT to reserve a 50% off session for portraits or seniors, they can. It’ll never expire. If you wish to do that, you can check out the options in the STORE. But know that I completely understand that the services provided by Type A are a luxury, not a necessity. Just know that Type A will be here when the smoke clears. This thing ain’t taking me down. Self-employed folks are a resilient bunch.

Enjoy some candids of the kiddos….looking all scrubby and waiting on a Zoom call from the grandparents.

We are in the midst of history making days here. Take pictures. Write it down.

The Evolution of the "Artist" ~ Wisconsin Wedding Photographer

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.