Boise Family Photographer | Wallflower Friends

Photography is all about feeling. Some images, well, they just reach us in ways that often can’t be explained. And some artists seem to have an intrinsic gift for creating those images, out of almost anything. For years, I’ve been inspired by portrait photographers Deb Schwedhelm and Leah Zawadzki, and when they brought their wallflower friends retreat to Sundance, Utah (within driving distance!) – it was an opportunity I simply couldn’t pass up.

I attended the retreat in October, 2010, about a year and half after hanging out my professional (photography) shingle, and about 9 months after our youngest, Ruby was born. With Ruby and my mom nestled in a cozy cabin in the Wasatch Mountains, I ventured out for two days of instruction, and more importantly – inspiration. (Sundance is also where I heard the inimitable Jonathan Canlas speak, himself a force whose thoughts on the significance of personal work left an enduring and soon evident impression on me.)

I felt so fortunate to have the chance to shoot beside Deb and Leah; to watch them work and soak up their incredible experience and insight. But the moment that retreat changed me – not only as a photographer, but as a person – didn’t transpire in the classroom or out in the field. It started with Jon, and his passionate description of the importance of personal work. Of shooting exclusively for yourself, and refining your voice and your vision in doing so. As anyone who’s met Jon knows, he’s big. His presence is big. He swept me up in a storm of wisdom and words and awakening – and then he was gone. But everything he said resonated in my mind, ricocheted around my heart. And then was echoed by everything Deb and Leah described over the weekend about shooting from the heart . . .  something that shows in every image they share, and the thing that draws me, and so many others, to their work.

As we sat at dinner that last night, someone’s iPad made its way around the table. When it reached me, without thinking, I pulled up my family blog. Not my professional blog – Deb and Leah had already seen my official portfolio. This was my other body of work – no polished portraits, but instead the sleeping baby, birthday party, trip to the zoo shots. But in that moment I wanted to share them with Deb. I passed her the iPad, and held my breath as she scrolled through several posts. When she looked up, she met my eyes and said, with what felt to me a little bit like wonder, “this is you.”

And I realized that she was right. That part of my photography – the genuine, unposed, “lifestyle” side was an inseparable part of my vision, and I wanted to explore it. More than explore it, I wanted to embrace it. I kept thinking about all of this as I returned to the cabin, where my littlest girl slept in my mother’s arms.

And in the dark and the quiet of that mountain retreat, I realized that I wanted something different, something more, from photography. After months of working into the wee hours to rebrand and reestablish my business after a second baby, I wanted to walk away. Not from my work, but from the work. I let the old blog slip into the ether. I launched the new blog according to our predetermined schedule, but then never looked back.

I wasn’t giving up. I was more passionate than ever, right there under a flannel blanket on the foldout couch in that Sundance cabin. But not about marketing, or networking, or packaging or any of the other parts of it that had come to consume my free minutes. I was passionate about my family and my photography, and finding my authentic voice in this medium. I walked away from the wallflower friends retreat a new photographer, and more excited about the art than I have ever been.

After more than a year of immersing myself in my family and photography just for me,  I’m emerging. And I think my style is continuing to do so, as well. I’ve lost touch with many of my wallflower friends, but I’m looking forward to reconnecting in our journeys. Maybe these, a few of my favorites from my wallflower weekend, will remind them of our time together:

Looking forward to finding what’s next on this horizon.