Found!

It felt good to help someone this week.   My clients from 10 years ago were robbed.  I got the call from Alana a few days ago.  Her voice was shaking in the voicemail she left me, and I could feel her sadness and loss.   I photographed their wedding 10 years ago, she was calling to tell me someone had broken into their home and taken everything while they were away, including her only copy on disc of her wedding images.  She wanted to know if there was a chance I still had the images. Gulp…10 years is a long time….I was worried I may not still have them.  When we spoke, she mentioned that her personal belongings were stolen including her special jewelry handed down from her grandmother that she wore on her wedding day, her wedding ring and other intimate items, and the only images she had of those items were in her wedding photos.  As a professional photographer, sometimes its easy to get caught up in running a business… making deadlines, juggling the artistic, the technical, scheduling, social media…whatever the task du jour is….but this is different.  When she called me, I remembered why I got into this in the first place…that I’m creating very personal captures of moments in time.  Sometimes I see photographers advertise slogans like “memories that last a lifetime” …and not to sound cliche….but I guess its really true.. and when your memories are corrupted by someone who breaks into your home and takes them from you, that’s got to be very painful.  I’ve experienced something similar.   I don’t always hold onto client work after this many years, and it would’ve been easier to dismiss and say that I don’t….but we are all humans going through life together, and for me I have to try and do the right thing and help,  so I began the search….and after days of digging through hard drives, and boxes of discs from back ups I had made over the years.  I found their wedding images, and they are back home where they belong.   She wrote me today to say she cried when she saw them.   All I can say is in this stressed out crazy world, its good to take a moment, make the extra effort and help someone by bringing joy to a dark time.  In my mind, true human nature is good and it can be clouded  by all the layers of things we put on top of it.  Its great for me to be reminded why I do what I do.  Thank you Alana and Eric, and glad your photos found their way back home!

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