Letting Go...

There is an old joke in photography that goes something like this...

A man is standing with his wife watching a beautiful sunset. They are lovingly looking into each others eyes when in the golden sunlight his wife says with a soft tender voice, "I love you." At this moment what is going through the man's mind, "I love you too", "You are wonderful", or other such niceties, nope. Instead, he is thinking 1/125th at f/5.6.

Its a fun little joke, but shows how many of us are constantly thinking of our art and not the moment. Here is where I would normally leave all of you to reflect on the need to let go and recognize where you are, blah, blah, blah. But nope, this is where I tell myself to recognize where I am, blah, blah, blah.

Today is my 13th wedding anniversary. I have been married to the most wonderful person imaginable for 13 years, it is hard to believe that she has tolerated me for so long. :-) In a tender moment this evening we sat down with our 8 year-old son to look at our wedding pictures. There was oohing, ahhing and fond memories galore. Through it all what did I do? Let me tell you, I kept looking at the pictures thinking that the backgrounds were underexposed and the poses were poorly executed.

Not only was I thinking this but I made the mistake of mentioning it to my wife. How stupid could I be, I was essentially implying that she did not look good. How dumb could I be? As you can imagine, there was back peddling and many assurances that she was in fact beautiful...which is no lie by the way. I even went as far as to say the photographer probably underexposed the background in order to draw attention to her. I think that one might have worked...ok it didn't. :-)

So the lesson for me is to let go of my obsessions and live in the moment. Being a photographer is fine and I do love it, but being a good husband is much more important to me. So honey if you are reading this, I love you and thanks for putting up with me for all these years. I hope to one day earn the love you shower on me so freely.