07 Apr Off To Tackle, and See, The World
I get to experience a wide array of emotions and feelings through my work since I choose to keep my horizons open to just about any kind of shoot that comes my way. Heck, “variety” is the spice of life, right? That means I’m capturing anything from an intense bodybuilding photo session to a couple reciting their wedding vows, or flying a quadcopter and filming over the breathtaking, still-eerily-barren foothills leading up to Mt. St. Helens. Recently, I received a call from some family – a request to capture one of my cousins, Kenzie. Kenzie just graduated college, a major milestone, and we wanted to document this moment in her life. And that brings me back to those “feelings” I hit on just a second ago. What did I feel most during this shoot? OLD. Yep, when you remember back to visiting with your family over the Holidays, you always remember the members younger than you to be, well, young. As in, they should stay that age forever, young. So when you hear (what seems to be an impossibility) your much younger cousin has just graduated college, it makes you feel old. Remember that scene from Interstellar, where Matthew gets back aboard the ship and, like, 25 years have gone by in what seemed like 4 seconds? Yeah. But I’m not old! Wait, I guess it is slowly happening. Dang it.
Kenzie and I spent a couple hours making some fun photos. I concentrated our time together on capturing Kenzie in a simple, raw style. Of course, it helped that at this moment I was hyper aware at just how fast time slips between our fingers and life keeps chugging along. A full rainbow of experiences are out there waiting for Kenzie. Some of them will be amazing, some not-so-great, and they will all continue to mold her as she adapts successfully to them all. I wanted these images to reflect how she felt about herself and this moment, because it will all be different even 6 months from now, especially this point in her life.
One thing Kenzie is anxious for is traveling. She loves traveling and is using the time immediately after graduating to travel Europe. What a great trip to take and explore! Having just been in the UK myself last month, I can testify to how much fun she’ll have and how many memories she’ll take away from the adventures over there. We have a large globe art piece here in Tacoma, so we got a couple shots in front of that to tell that part of her story.
Just like the last 10 years since I’ve graduated college, the couple hours we spent making these photos zoomed right by. At least we have proof of those hours! Ok, now I’m off to find the off switch to this crazy thing we called time.