… no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. -Max Ehrmann.
Innocence.
This image is 100% innocent. Not only the subject, this young little thing, hair crazy all over, pearl necklace draped over high neckline, soft pink dress that she just got done spinning on the dance floor… but also it is untouched by technology other than it’s digital form… no fancy corrections to highlight her ruffles, no toning to dramatize her against the dark, no huge softbox to light her… just natural light and natural her. So much can be done to change an image today… most of it is great and to a photographer’s advantage. But I still love knowing shots like this exist… where its pure… subject, form and talent.
A year ago this time I wouldn’t have even called Alyssa a good friend. She was an acquaintance… I liked her but we just ran in the same circle/organization and not much more. Again, I’m going to pat myself on the back for the planning of these quotes with these particular inspirations. I must say I just picked some of my most favorite quotes and loosely paired them with people… but everyone I write about I am in awe of how fitting they are to each other. Maybe it’s like horoscopes and fortune cookies… it could say the most broad statement like, ‘Some one worthwhile will come into your life’ and I sit there and think, ‘Wow… that is so true I just met this awesome bride four weeks ago.’ Blanket application, I suppose… I love that though. It’s almost a little like faith, if I can make that huge, bold comparison… sometimes you just want to believe something, sometimes it is so warming to think bigger things are at play here than just our own hard work. This quote also speaks to the faith idea… and for me, more than anything, it is in those unclear moments that faith saves me… and sometimes Alyssa does, too.
So we were sent out to Seattle, WA together to spend a weekend with troops at Fort Lewis just north of Seattle. The trip was originally planned for a month earlier but when weddings came up for work, they were gracious enough to take us at a later date. It was a hard trip for me because I was in the middle of a lot of work stuff, I was overwhelmed with projects and I was sad to leave my then close friend. It was made even harder with the time changes, the flight plans being rearranged, the long hours, the fact I couldn’t get in touch with my friend, my guilt about leaving work undone and I didn’t really know this Alyssa too well. I look back now and KNOW that this trip, with all of its hardships and stress was a life-changing trip for me. TRULY LIFE-CHANGING. We of course got to meet wonderful troops and see amazing things on the base that everyday keep me safe in my little condo in Atlanta, remarkable. Not only that in retrospect, I was forced (yes forced) to hang out with someone I wouldn’t normally… who I now call one of my best friends. Also in retrospect, this was a time in my relationship with my ‘goodbye guy’ that the wrong started to happen, I tried to say goodbye on that trip but I wasn’t strong enough then. Words cannot express the awe I feel when thinking about all the blessings that came out of my 09 Seattle trip… If I were to have opened a fortune cookie there, no doubt it would’ve said ‘Wake up Erika, everything going on right now… all over… will change your life.’ Though I find great joy in the smallness of applying a fortune cookie, I wouldn’t have done that application justice.
Alyssa is something else. She fits wonderfully in with my other two best friends Shervin and Sheyvone in that they just have this ability to take everything away… I’m at complete ease with them. I’m a 90 mile an hour person generally, so I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the easiest person to just sit around with… but Alyssa has this calming power over me… she comes over and my list of 47 becomes managable… and often times managable for TOMORROW. This, I suppose, seems to not be a great business inspiration, maybe the opposite, but I don’t see it that way. She inspires me to just chill… which is devastatingly important to my sanity and my goals even. I send emails at 4 AM often and pull all night photo edit sessions, I NEED AN ALYSSA to settle that down sometimes. She is this little school teacher (I went to her classroom once for an hour and needed to rest in my car before driving home I was so wound up) so maybe everything in her life in comparison to hanging out with 30 second graders becomes a non-issue or maybe she’s just always been Ms. Cool, Calm and Collected. She has her moments, don’t we all… but those are moments I see her passion for her friends and her loved ones, never just little stressors that eat away at most of us. She’s had many changes and challenges in her life recently and I hope she always remembers that things are unfolding just as they should. In particular with me, I know Alyssa will now be forever by my side as the universe unfolds as it may… I got her out of the deal… so I’ll take my chances on faith in that belief.
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