Loving Your Work/photography

I don’t hate my job. Well….maybe don’t is too strong a word. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I wish I could just walk away from 27 years of what I do. All too often we find out much too late in life what brings us true joy, a sense of satsfaction and accomplishment. Regular Schools don’t generally nurture that sense of self fullfillment in children while parents tend to steer their young in the direction of current trends for successful and profitable careers or , worse yet, leave them to their own devices. Many people are well into their adult years before they fully realize what brings them joy.

‘Why should that matter?’, you may be asking. It matters because, when possible, spending a lifetime making a living is far less stressful, tiring and much more productive than waking up each day with the sinking feeling of returning to something you have to do rather than love to do. I think it is possible to do both but that it happens much less often than you might think.

As I said, I don’t hate my job. But you all know what I love. I love to be taking photos. Primarily that is out in nature where the subjects are tolerant, if not often very willing, to have their pictures taken. Not always so in human life. Most people (ahem, family) I try to photograph get all crazy about it so I have not done a lot of portrait photography, although I would love to do more. This past weekend offered me the opportunity to do just that for a friend at work whose family was visiting. They wanted some nice memories of their time together and she asked if I wanted to do it. Yes!! I was a bit nervous, wanting to give them something beautiful to look back on. The young couple is newly engaged and the love shows in their expressions. I am happy with the results and hope they are too. They were truly wonderful to work with and really enjoyed doing the photo shoot. What’s not to love about playing at the beach?

Here are just a few shots from the morning. The rising sun and turbulent, dark water made great ocean shots impossible; but the coquina made great background and natural props.