Thanks for your visit. I know your time is important and you may only have a few minutes before you have to rush off... But I don't want you to leave empty handed.
If only for a moment, I invite you to slow down, to breathe in a little deeper and fill your eyes up with the beauty that's already all around you. It's our sincere hope that our work helps you see it a little clearer today.
The clouds opened up for the first taste of Spring in time for my first wedding of 2012. These images remind me of all the warmth and laughter from their family and friends. I can get lost in the many moments full of beauty that day…
It wasn’t long ago, Franny + Bill were engaged, now they’re newlyweds! If you don’t know Franny, I suggest getting to know her. She’s warm, inviting, and quite honestly, one of my favorite people to work with on any project. Franny is a talented interior designer branching out on her own Franny High Design (formerly of Aaron Carlson Design, the vision behind our gallery and office design). Bill, her husband now, gets buildings built (like the Midtown Crossing and Paxton) and helps her bring her visions off the page and into the world. It’s a magical partnership!
BUILDING MARRIAGES TO LAST
Being a wedding photographer the past 10 years has allowed me to see the joys of young love over and over again. And I’m so thankful because it is one of the most beautiful things in the world. As we all know, however, not everything that blooms matures into a deeply rooted relationship that goes the distance. Sadly, I’ve seen a few weddings I’ve photographed end in divorce already. Statistically speaking, it’ll happen to half of us — it’s a frightening thought!
So if you’re a bride or groom to be, how do you know if your marriage will have what it takes? How do you build it to last? I believe everyone has the potential; here’s my advice how to get there. Take some time to thoroughly examine the following. Be sure both of you know how to 1). communicate your feelings, 2). fight fair, and 3). and are capable of following through with commitment. If you have these three relational ingredients, I believe you have everything you’ll need for a beautiful marriage — you’ll have a lifetime of discovering treasures together.
COMMUNICATE (YOUR FEELINGS WITH VULNERABILITY)
Do you know yourself well enough to have a good handle on your feelings in most circumstances? Can you easily share how you really feel with your fiancee? If so, great! If not, why? If there’s anything you’re afraid of, that’s a red flag. Honestly look at what is holding you back and ask yourself if you want to bring that into your marriage with you? Sharing your feelings and giving names to the experiences you share together is what intimacy is all about. The fruit of which is a deep internal rest in knowing you are seen, accepted, and cherished just as you are.
FIGHT FAIR (WITHOUT BLAME OR ATTACKING WORDS)
All relationships have inherit conflict. Avoiding it isn’t what makes a good healthy connection — it’s the dealing with it honestly with no attacking or blaming statements. What throws most of us off track is the heat of the moment. When we have strong emotions, we often stop communicating what we feel and jump right into reacting to what we’re feeling. Feelings are vulnerable center; not the defensive retaliation to protect them. For example, if someone starts pushing our buttons, we might say, “Cut it out. Stop irritating me!” We might even attach a feeling word disclaimer and say, “Stop it, I feel like you’re being rude and insensitive.” Although all of these statements may be laced with feeling words, it’s far from being honest with how we actually feel or does it give access to the other person to see us clearly. Digging deeper, expressing how we feel might look more like this, ”I’m feeling hurt and annoyed; I need some space for a little bit.” Practice this now, for it sets the path you’ll find yourself years later.
COMMIT YOURSELF (DECIDE TO BE A PERSON OF INTEGRITY)
Before you say “I do,” ask yourself are you capable of following through with your commitments? Ask the same of your partner. Is integrity carved deep into their character? Or does he or she have a tendency to back out of things when they get too hard? If you know how to commit to one another, you’ll develop the foundation for your love to grow and you’ll be able to endure anything life throws at you. I’ll have no doubt that you’ll be one of the successful ones. Your wedding day will just a drop of goodness compared to the joys you’ll share as you grow old together. May you have 50 or more increasingly beautiful years!
Below is an except from an old Conan O’Brien interview of Louis C.K. which turned out to be one of the best commentaries on the 21st century and a humorous reminder the secret to happiness is gratitude. Enjoy!
Louis CK: Those were simpler times I think. I just feel like, we may be going back to that by the way, but ah, in a way good because when I read things like the foundations of capitalism are shattering I’m like maybe we need that. Maybe we need some time where we’re walking around with a donkey with pots clanking on the sides, ya know.
Conan O’Brien: You think that that would just bring us back to reality.
Louis: Ya, because everything is amazing right now and nobody’s happy. Like in my lifetime the changes in the world have been incredible. When I was a kid we had a rotary phone. We had a phone you had to stand next to and you had to dial it, (yes) you know. You know, you ever realize how primitive, you’re making sparks in a phone and you actually would hate people with zeros in their numbers ’cause it was more (right) oh, this guy’s got two zeros, screw that guy, why do I wanna, ugh… and then if, if theycalled and you weren’t home the phone would just ring lonely by itself. And then when, if you wanted money you had to go in the bank for (yes) when it was open for like three hours. You had to stand in line, write yourself a check like an idiot, and then when you ran outta money you just go, well I can’t do any more things now (yeah, right) I can’t do any more things (that’s it, yeah) that was it. And, and, and even if you had a credit card they, the guy’d go ugh and he’d bring out this whole shunk, shunk and he’d write and he’d have to call the president to see if you had any money…..
Conan: It’s all true kids. You had to call the president, yeah. It was rediculous. (yes) Do you feel that we now, in the 21st century, we take technology for granted?
Louis: Well, yeah, ’cause now we live in, in an amazing, amazing world and it’s wasted on the, on the crappiest generation of just spoiled idiots that don’t care because, this is what people are like now. They got their phone and they’re like eeaagh, it won’t… give it a second! Give it, it’s going to space, would ya give it a second to get back from space, it’s the speed of light, it’s true, it’s true. (yeah) I was on a, I was on an airplane and there was internet, high speed internet on the airplane (yes) that’s the newest thing that I know exists. And I’m sitting on the plane and they go open up your laptop and you can go on the internet and it’s fast and I’m watching YouTube clips it’s amazing. I’m in an airplane and then it breaks down and they apologize the internet is not working and the guy next to me goes psssh this is bull____. Like how quickly the world owes him something (yes) he knew existed only 10 seconds ago (right, right) and on planes….
Flying is the worst one because people come back from flights and they tell you their story and it’s like a horror story. It’s, they act like their flight was like a cattle car in the 40′s in Germany. (yeah) That’s how bad they make it sound (right). They’re like it was the worst day of my life. First of all we didn’t board for 20 minutes (right) and then we get on the plane and they made us sit there on the runway for 40 minutes. We had to sit there. Oh really, what happened next? Did you fly through the air incredibly like a bird? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight, you non-contributing zero? Wow, you’re flying! It’s amazing! Everybody on every plane should just constantly be going, oh my God, wow! (yes) you’re flying! You’re, you’re sitting in a chair in the sky (yes, yeah, yeah). But it doesn’t go back a lot. And it smells really. You know, here’s the thing. People like they say there’s delays on flights (yeah) delays really New York to California in 5 hours. That used to take 30 years to do that and a bunch of you would die on the way there and have a baby. You’d be with a whole different group of people by the time you got there. Now you watch a movie you and you take a dump and you’re home.
The world around us is incredibly beautiful. And yet so easy to miss. Can you believe that these images are nothing more than water in a plastic bottle while sitting between the two seats of my car? Art is when the ordinary becomes extraordinary.
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” ~C.S. Lewis
For those of you who don’t already know, I’m tirelessly inspired by the human heart and the magnificent creative energy it pumps out to those willing to listen to that still small voice. The people who listen, act and find ways to share a new language of beauty the rest of us can now understand are the people who inspire me most. As I meet more and more people, I’m discovering there is no such thing as an ordinary person — just an unknown person. In light of that, I’ve been doing a personal project I’m calling Inspired Conversations to make room to have potentially amazing conversations with such people and since I’m a photographer, create a few editorial portraits to share about our time together. Not long ago, I sat down with New Yorker (and Omaha native), Melissa Saunders to talk about her book, Lessons from a Rubber Duck, and the complex issues behind the social phenomenon known as bullying.
“Melissa is a former elementary school teacher and counselor. She has master’s degrees in both education and counseling. Her first book, Lessons from a Rubber Duck, is an empowering tale about standing up to teasing and bullying. She regularly visits schools and other organizations for author visits.” (from her website) The following is a summary of insights gained from our conversation.
THE BULLY PROFILE Contrary to popular belief, there is no profile for a bully–bullies come from all walks of life. But Saunders said there are a few trends that can be identified:
bullying is about exploited power and control
exploited power imbalances can be in the form of social status, intellectual capacity, cultural, religious or sexual/gender differences, etc.
bullies can also be bully victims–they’ve learned this behavior because it’s been modeled for them
children disciplined by shame, sarcasm, spanking, or corrosive behaviors are more likely to engage in bullying
Ambiguous expectations for behavior is also a factor that allows bullying to thrive, along with undefined structure or non-established routines. The most surprising news to me was learning that research shows bullying is a tool for gaining social status. It makes me wonder how bullying becomes a form of social currency in our public school system in the first place.
SOCIAL VALUE EQUALS SOCIAL STATUS Saunders says, “We send messages all the time about what we value.” Or even in what we don’t say and ways we aren’t even aware of. Consider the simple use of pictures of generic people in text books–for young kids grasping for identity, these send a message of what is normal, accepted family and relationships, or the standard all else is measured against. Or what about the things we choose to celebrate? What things are important enough to interrupt the day and stop the learning process to celebrate? Very often schools do just that for prep rallies. And in the process, it sends a very strong message about what or who is worth celebrating with school wide attention. We celebrate football players and cheerleaders (which re-enforces stereotypical gender roles), not chess champions, academic achievers, artists, or the marching band. Everyone’s heard the term “band nerd” but no one thinks to put together the words “football nerd.” This creates social status.
It’s quite possible bullying is the root of all violence in our schools (if not society at large), and it can be discouraging to see how deep bullying runs into our systems of society. But it’s also true that change is always possible. Adults who were bullied as children are speaking out to give kids empowering vision beyond victimization. One such simple message of hope is the “It Gets Better” movement. There’s also the Trevor Project and the Safe School Improvement Act (SSIA) which seeks to require schools to have specific policies in place to get federal funding and spell out specificity protected rights.
GENUINE COMMUNICATION IS HELP Saunders says kids tend to think that adults won’t do anything about it or will make things worse, but “if kids see adults getting involved in a positive way, the more likely they will be to share what’s really going on.” The more transparent we are about these issues, the more empowered we’ll be to choose to live differently.
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