2011 … a brief look back

Where do I begin really …

Its kind of crazy to look back really. All we do really seem to do is look forward. We photograph weddings for a living, therefore I can tell you what day of the week saturday falls on for all of next year. The past, like the present gets trumped sometimes for the rapidly approaching and always dynamic horizon. Like any job, we sometimes get frustrated with our work and often wonder where this is taking us …

After all, you yourself are your toughest critic.

Its our seventh year of doing this (well 4th as ‘sargeant photography’) and its remarkable to look back and see how we’ve progressed and what we got right, and of course what we could have done differently. But we never thought we would be here, we never imagined while both working 50+ hour weeks to pay our way through art school that we would spend the majority of our time meeting new people, befriending them, and showing up to celebrate with them camera in hand. Its worked out quite well though.

Without this job we wouldn’t have formed some of the strong friendships we have now, we wouldn’t have been able to build our independence, we wouldn’t have traveled to places like  Kauai, Italy, Netherlands, Texas, Michigan, Ojai, San Fran (to name a few). But we can do better …

Our job is great because we get to make people happy every day (given we do our part correctly) … our clients respond with kindness and adoration after receiving photos, what else out there produces so much consistent positivity for both the client and the creator (?). But still we can do better. 2011 was great. We photographed some amazing people … my own twin brother Eric, fantastic friends Alexis, Tanner, Heather, and Chris just a few of them. Thank you to everyone for making 2011 a really solid year, but we realized that we’ve been picking at our own low hanging fruit … and we can reach a little higher and push ourselves further.

Here’s to a great 2012 full of passion and creativity for everybody.

~Paul + Leanne