Day Four: Spirit {7 days, 7 photos, 7 stories}

I've had a lot of people say a lot of things to me about my photography; most of them complimentary, some of them constructively critical (which I definitely appreciate), but all of them thought-provoking. I've had strangers come up to me and tell me that they can clearly identify my work from other's images, whether my name is on it or not. The mother of a family of five that I photographed told me that my work felt the way the music of Lori McKenna sounded (American folk rock if you care to google her. I did. And wow, what a compliment. There is a certain quality to that music that is both calming and soulful, filled with more than just rhythm and words). And one comment that recently resounded with me came from the mother of two boys I'd photographed. She looked me right in the eye and said that she had spent a lot of time on my portrait blog and that it was evident to her that there was "spirit" in my work.

Spirit.

What a word. And what a moment of truth, perhaps, for me. For, you see, the point of this story isn't to pat myself on the back for my accomplishments, but to say instead that it often eludes me how to convincingly communicate that what I do isn't about me. It isn't about the money. It isn't about climbing to new heights and achieving new goals. These things are all critical to owning a successful business, for certain. But for me, it's about the spirit. Without it - without the driving force of something undefinable, trailing like a thread that connects me to my photographs and my photographs to the people or subjects in them - then what, really, is the point? If there is spirit in my work it is only because that which I photograph has spirit, and I can only hope to translate that intangible something into an authentically, completely, utterly tangible thing, transcribing the essence of who or what I'm photographing into a permanent record of a moment lived and a story told.

Do I flatter myself in thinking that there really is something about my work that defines me from others? Do I wax vain in believing that this is truly the thing that I am meant to be doing, that the enthusiasm with which I greet every day and every photo shoot can not only energize and infect my subjects but also draw them out of themselves, allowing them to reveal the real person inside? Maybe. But if it keeps me going, then what's the harm in believing.