Right around the time I was graduating college with my bachelors degree a photo studio was opening in my mall. I would not discover the studio until a few months after it came in and was already up and running but I would eventually apply with the hope of learning the studio side of photography.
Prior to that I was a rodeo photographer, and I did portraits and events on location. I had purchases a pop up studio background for some portraits I was commissioned for by my college and lights to accompany the backdrop. The idea of working in the studio was the refine my studio skills, learn new stuff, and see what local clients were looking for in their photographic needs.
The actual truth of that studio was it was standardized based on a model that worked where it first originated before becoming a corporate entity that sucked the life out of the art form. This is not in reference to the employees I worked with and befriended, truth is they made coming to work, as did many of the clients that used the studio. Corporate policy however was horrible on a creative but that is why creatives don’t do well in corporate environments.
In my time in the studio one of my assistant managers who would become the temporary studio manager while I came up to assistant manager status became a good friend. She had life dreams that I have gotten to witness her strive for and achieve, as we planned and talked about on those many days in the studio. The dreams were becoming a police officer and marrying a man who made her happy.
After the studio closed like seven or eight months after I started there, she went to the academy and achieved the dream of being an officer. And finally after four years of planing and dreaming of the wedding and the photography at the end of August 2019 she finally married the man so I could create the photos.
It was a great privilege to be the one there and to create the images for her. Nothing better than being a part of someones dreams and capturing them.
View the rest of the photos here.