There are people that you want to tell your whole life story to the first time you meet therm. People who make it so easy to open up and spill your guts. People who you can tell your hopes, dreams, fears and the inner workings of my brain to openly and without fear of ridicule or rejection. I feel really lucky to have a lot of these people in my life. I have them in my personal life with my friends and family as well as my professional life with my clients and colleagues. This past Saturday was a day full of my awesome colleagues. I had the most awesome photo friend day. I started by meeting up with Meg Simone, a local videographer; Anne Skidmore, a local photographer and Stacy Hedman a photographer from the cape who was up in the area visiting with her husband for the weekend. We spent a few hours devouring huge plates of breakfast full of pancakes, eggs, bacon and of course a few cups of coffee. It was great to spend some time with great friends and not feel pressure to talk about work. Sometimes I need to talk with an industry friend about work. I need someone who gets how stressful it can be, how frustrating it is when Photoshop quits just before you go to hit save and someone who can laugh at crazy reception stories. But sometimes it's nice to have time to talk to people who might be able to relate to all that but talk about food, local events and traveling. To take business out of the picture and know that you still connect with these people mean they are so much more then colleagues that you get along with, they truly are friends.
That afternoon I drove down to Portland, ME to meet up with Meredith Perdue, a Portland based photographer who I've had a long standing facebook, blog and email friendship with but who I've managed to never been in the same place at the same time allowing us to chat in person. We met in the old port and wondered around talking about our dogs, home decor and the great gelato wars of Four Street. It was so great to really put a face to a name and realize that we have more then our photography in common.
After spending a wonderful afternoon with Meredith I met up with Justin & Mary at one of my favorite restaurants in Portland, Grace. It's actually an old church that they turned into a restaurant. They also rent it out for weddings and I'd LOVE to shoot there - so any brides out there looking for a Portland venue- check out Grace... then call me ;) It was awesome as always to spend three plus hours drinking Haute Affairs and Holier Than Thous (both signature coctails), eat some delicious food and talk with my friends.
J&M had just gotten back from a conference in Mexico and were up in ME to speak at the MPPA meeting the following day. We talked about business, pushing ourselves, asking "what if" and of course talking about my wedding (which they are shooting) and life in general. It was the perfect top off to a wonderful day full of friends who just so happen to be in the same crazy wedding industry.
*photo credits left to right: Spring Smith, Mary Marantz and Justin Marantz.
As I drove home that night and thought about the fact that I had just spent one day with 6 awesome industry people and felt like I had just spent the day with some of my closest friends it made me so grateful for this industry. So many people in so many jobs are cut throat with their competition. It's so nice to know that there are people in my industry who truly are my friends and camera or no camera are people that I care about and can spend hours talking with. So thank you photography friends, thank you wedding industry friends, thank you to all my friends and family. I am truly blessed.
XOXO Spring
