What I am here to do

I am here to help marriages survive, thrive and come alive. I will do this using my art and people skills. This is my mission.

This is awfully risky. But I'm a professional photographer that happens to be annoyingly unmotivated by money. So how do I find motivation outside of the discrete joy of creating art for it's own sake?

I see other photographers out there who are making a fabulous living and it drives me crazy because I can't bring myself to push products and services upon people that I'm not inspired by. It feels weird and I don't what to do about that. Those people are to be admired and respected. I'm jealous of them in a way because I've tried to do it their way and I just can't do it. Maybe it's my ADD. Maybe not.

By the time I sit down with clients who've vetted me we've established a meaningful relationship and these people have or are fast becoming my friends. I care about them. I really do and I want the best for them. So I can't just push a book or product on them that doesn't have some kind of visceral marriage-assistive meaning for them.

It's a requirement of living that you need money. I need money to raise a family, to send my kids to school, pay for clothes, a home, blah, blah blah. But because of how I was raised dangling a check in my face really doesn't get me going.

So I need another, more fulfilling reason to be an artist and earn income because my Photosynthetic superpower never worked and Gamp's 3rd Law of Elemental Transfiguration prevents me for materializing pizza out of thin air. Stupid law.

Here's my motivation: I've been through a divorce and I have a deep, tacit, visceral, heart-rending understanding of the extraordinary and indescribable pain that it caused me.

It was a touchstone in my life that was more life-changing then joining the military, the day my mother died, growing up in a dysfunctional home and the day my son and daughter were born.

I don't want to wish divorce on anybody and I guess it affects the way I approach wedding photography. Every image, every joke, every lens and all my significant energy is bent towards this over-riding mission.

I can't say that my images are so abjectly awesome that they will ascend to heaven upon a glorious rose-scented cloud exhaled by ninjas or they are on par with rainbows, unicorns and the Second Coming. But I can say that my art stirs people in a way that is as real as it is difficult to describe or contain. I don't understand it but it's real.

My hope is that when my friends/clients reach their 7 or 16 year mark (or whatever) in their marriage and face their very first Leadership Challenge that maybe, just maybe they'll stumble across an image I took of them on that wedding day that happened so long ago and maybe that image will inspire that individual to hang in there just one more day.

Maybe they'll remember how they felt on that day and the'll pick up the phone to book a therapist. Or maybe they'll take that huge, terrifying risk to sit down and open their heart to their spouse. Maybe they'll be inspired to be brave, selfless and courageous just one more day.

Maybe.

I am a business. That much is true. A business exists to create income through the quid-pro-quo of services and/or products for an agreed value: money. This money pays for camera gear, learning, food, etc.

But the business part exists because it's necessary for me to be an artist. I can't clothe my little boy and girl in warm feelings. But I need a reason to excel that is epic and bigger then me or the venal efforts of a simplistic artist/businessman.

So you now know that I want to help marriages win. But it'll require finding the couples who want to do something different. Who are brave, experienced tough times and are willing to take risks. Those couples are out there, somewhere in the world and I want to find them. It'll be kinda risky and uncomfortable for these couples because I'll be asking questions to help prepare them not just for their wedding day but for their marriage.

I want to be an ally on a team of allies to help their marriage win. There's no insignificant risk in this. I'm probably driving away couples right now with my vision.

But I so want to give them the little details I've learned over the years that bring more value to a couple's monetary investment. I want to help them not just to have a world-class wedding day experience and photography with me (They will. Oh yeah.) but I want to have a meaningful positive long term affect.

I can say these 2 things with a bitterly earned sense of joy and confidence born of pain, sacrifice and tragedy:

1. I know how to make a camera stand up and sing...
2. I know how to walk into the emotional crucible of a wedding day and play it like an symphony.

And I want to put these, my most hard-fought precious skills, at the feet of my future friends/clients to help the miracle of their wedding day and marriage last a lifetime. If this motivates you then we need to talk. But if I'm a checkmark on your task list then please move onto some other venal and banal photography business. You're not ready.

I am going to try to do something new and different: I'm looking to build an army of screaming crazy, rabid, loyal friend/fans/clients who so badly want their marriage to win that it'll drive them to pay any price, thwart any foe and go any distance for their marriage.

So where are you, my future friends? Be assured that as hard as you're looking for me I'm looking for you, too. I want to come alongside you and help you. You'll know me when you find me: something in your heart'll stir. You'll find yourself coming back to my site several times over no matter how many other sites you find.

I am 41. Half my life is gone. A great deadline looms on the horizon of my life and now I find I am slowly, steadily running out of time to make a difference. I'm in a hurry now and I want to find my brave couples.

I'll probably fail and humiliate myself one more time. But I want to try anyway. Oh, God this is risky.

God, I'm scared.