Jamie & Kenny / A Teaser

I am never any good at editing myself, holding things back, or practicing the art of leaving things out in order to enhance a story. I share everything. If you have ever heard me tell a story, you may have experience me getting so caught up in the details that I forget what the point was in the first place. Most people seem almost relieved when I realize this and stop talking.

One of my absolute favorite high school summer reading assignments was Willa Cather's, My Antonia. I can remember there was a scene where Cather went on for pages painting a picture of a western field with the most beautifully descriptive words I had ever seen. I loved it. I ate every word up, to the point where I could feel the warmth of the sun on my skin and the tickle of the grass beneath my palm. I couldn't wait to talk about it in class that following semester. To marvel at the skill of the author, the brilliance of the literature. I was completely crushed to find that the great majority of my classmates hated the thing, even directly referring to the painful scene that dragged on for pages describing a field, "for crying out loud." "Get to the point already," they complained. And it was there, with all my words of praise for Willa frozen at my lips, that I realized that people are just different in the level of information and/or detail they care to receive.

For my masters thesis while all my classmates were scrambling in the last days to get up to a certain page count I was struggling to get my count down to save me some money at the printer. Penning all the "painful" details of the research is just what I did all along. I loved it. (I on the other hand, was scrambling to get actual "design" work done to support my "design" thesis.) And it was there, with a 150 page book and $300 printing bill in my hands, that I realized that people are just different in the level of information and/or detail they feel necessary to give.

I run this test on myself for facebook. When I go to post something as my status I think of the most random person on my friend list and ask myself, "If so-and-so posted this would I find it interesting, valuable, or worthy?" If the answer is no, then I proceed to pound on the delete key until every letter disappears (or just press cancel, depending upon how dramatic I am feeling at the moment.) I wanted to post it. I wanted the facebook world to know those details of my life, to feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, or whatever other meaningful detail of my day pressed upon my thoughts at that time, begging to escape. But something in me encouraged otherwise. (If only some other folks on facebook would run the same test on themselves. Detailed descriptions of what is "going on" with your body while you are sick absolutely DO NOT belong in a facebook status. Period. Even I know that.)

Believe it or not, I have the same problem with photos. The first thing I do when I get home after a photo shoot is download the photos, back them up, and then look through every one (which is typically well over 500) picking out the best that will make up my edited suite for my clients. This gets hard. I try to narrow it down to between 100-150, but this rarely if ever happens. The session plays out like a story for me, and so do the images. It is hard to choose what to leave in but even harder what to leave out. Even the slight shift of a gaze in the same pose tells a different part of the story. From eyes, to lips. You know what I mean. And it is here, with a newly purchased 2 terabyte hard drive quickly filling up with image files, that I realized that my clients are just going to be different in the level of details of their story they care to receive, because the long, drawn out story, "for crying out loud," is what they are going to get with me as their photographer. And I love it. I hope they do too.

Wait, why was I telling you all this story?

Uh, well, I have been huddled up in front of my computer editing away at hoards of gorgeous photos of truly beautiful people over the last few days and weeks and I can't hold it back. I just don't know how to. I feel like I absolutely have to share something, anything with you! Because of the busy-ness there is nothing ready for a full on blog post at this time but a few teasers may leak out here and there including this one from my engagement photo sesh with the lovely Jamie and Kenny that spanned from a runway at an Avon Park airport to the tall, golden grass in a off the beaten path field, that tickled the palm of my hand, as we captured their love on film (digital film that is). The story begins...