I have been building my photography business for a few years now. I thought I would like to shoot pretty weddings, for people who are in love, that want images with feeling and an artistic style. Special pictures for special people.  What I have encountered, about 30 percent of the time, what looks to be like a rude email. “What are your rates? I am on a budget!” No Dear so and so, no Thank you, no sincerely and most importantly, no I love your work and it is exactly what we are looking for.

I received an email yesterday along those lines, with another similar to it, that said, I only want to communicate through email. My response, delete delete! I am not a desperate photographer or artist. I do it because I love it. I don’t have to make a living at it. I only have to create work I am proud of.  I am free to choose whom I want to spend time with, whom I want to photograph. I can’t express how great it feels to be free.  People don’t understand, I have to like my subjects in order to capture great pictures. Why? Because I am going to bring my perception of my subject to the image. Ansel Adams said, the image is a marriage of the subject and photographer. I don’t do email because I need to hear the tone of my client’s voice. Voice tone says everything. I can determine from the first conversation whether it is yes or no for me. If we like each other, then we meet and the deal is usually sealed. I am interviewing them too. 

Once I did a wedding for a bridezilla. Once and final time. I knew it when I booked her, but I thought it would be OK. I was with her for 9 hours and that was doable, but I had to look at her face in the editing room for another 40 hours. Every time I looked at her I was in a bad mood. Never again. 

For this reason, to stay true to my compass, I have taken on the job of managing our local chamber. Which allows me the creative freedom to work with whom I want, when I want? The condition of  my job is the Board’s flexibility to allow me to photograph weddings, they were very generous with me about this. My issue is time. I must be discerning about how I spend it and with whom.

Dave called me a few months back and explained he was a photographer from Chico. Creative imagery is very important to him.  That he has also photographed weddings and that he was looking at the regional talent and he found that my work impressed him most. We had a great first conversation and then a really nice meeting where I met Karen. I felt great about them after our meeting and we booked each other for their October wedding.

I  realize with this attitude I won’t be shooting 6 weddings a month for a thousand each and I really don’t want to. What I am and will be doing is one or two a month for for 3k to 5k  and working with people I want to spend time with and who also want to work with me. Maybe I sound like an ass, but I have worked very hard for a long time to find this sweet spot.

I am confident I can shoot anyone, but I can’t shoot for everyone. My clients know who they are and what’s more important is I know who they are and we like it like that. They are looking for special pictures and I am looking for special people.

Mike and Alexia contacted me through the Knot and we booked the wedding over the phone. We photographed their engagement session at Sutro Heights above the baths at Ocean Beach in San Francisco a few months ago. When I found out their wedding details I was completely excited to be able to document their wedding. It seems the wedding was designed to be sweet, beautiful, tasteful, classic, chic and without airs. The Hastings house boasts stunning gardens with a clean cottage to get ready in and has the beach as a backdrop, the Farallon Restaurant’s Beluga Reception Room at The Kensington Park Hotel doesn’t get any more classic, tasteful and quintessential San Francisco than that. Completely up my alley and the thing that synced it for me was Alexia said they liked my work because it felt alive the other work they looked at seemed soulless. I think it’s still one of the best complements I have ever received. I respect her politics tastes and her amazing education. Alexia and Mike are a wonderful couple who seem to operate on courtesy, partnership, mutual respect and an honest friendship. I learn a lot about people at weddings and Ian I left wanting to be more like them. After hearing Alexia’s mother’s speech about how her daughter chose a husband I wanted my daughters to learn from Alexia. Ian and I also enjoyed them immensely. It’s a day for us either will soon not forget.

We ate a very late dinner at the Farallon restaurant and it was one of the most amazing meals of our lives. I can still taste it.

Beautiful Heather Greene now Upton’s  Wedding in Lake Almanor is finished. It was such a beautiful wedding and day. I feel so lucky I was able to photograph their wedding.

I have  been with my husband for 23 years. I have been married a long time. I  love my husband, I like my husband and I am in love with my husband. The three being quit different things.  There is no other person on the planet that can send me through  a  gambit of emotion. To say we have a passionate marriage is an understatement. I have a very rich marriage. At times it rings me out and every once in while I fantasize about moving into a little place all my own and being alone on the coast. Taking a rest from the work of my marriage.

What I have learned about marriage is getting married isn’t a marriage, it’s a party. Just like being in love with an infant, so that when they are unruly teenagers we won’t kill them, the beginning of a relationship serves the same purpose. Remembering the beginning ; long term marriages seem to have a way of tainting one’s today’s with yesterday’s injuries. Hearing marriage vows keeps it fresh, new and real for me. It also causes me to reflect.

I photograph weddings and the odd thing about being behind my camera is my ears hear everything. I hear every word of their vows. Every word hits me in my gut. Whether the couple being married is taking the the vows that I am hearing seriously,  matters not,  I am taking them very seriously. My marriage is serious business to me, a whole life,  family, trajectory of many lives hang in the balance. Marriage is not for the weak or faint of heart.  The longer I am married I come to understand for me marriage is a sacred covenant not a contract. That was the message I took away from this wedding. Even though I already know it on some level, sometimes I forget it. Sometimes I feel like it’s a contract that can be renegotiated or adjusted or absolved.

Shirley, who was there in my early married life and Yoda to me, said “Marriage is made everyday Kim. One day at a time.” I know a little today what that means.  I speak for me only, because I am by nature stubborn and a flawed human being, I look at my marriage as my sacred spiritual work.  One day at a time, it  demands  I grow up just a little more that I love a little  more, that I change a little more. Thank God I know Love to be a verb, just like faith without works is dead, so is love without right action, because when I want to move to my quiet little cottage on the coast I am shown one more time there is something I must work on and change in myself. At the end of the day I find, it begins and ends with me and it is a lesson I have to keep learning.

Once when I was having a moment where I thought my husband wasn’t taking this marriage work as seriously  as I was, I asked him. ” Honey is this a  marriage of convenience for  you?” He laughed hard and loud, and said with a big smile “There isn’t anything convenient about it.”  Now that may sound bad, but I took it as a  great sign. He’s working too and he wouldn’t if it didn’t matter to him. We both are in it one day at a time.

Photographing Weddings is good for me and my  marriage.

I have been in love with the Mendocino Coast since I was 20 going up to through Booneville to Greenwood Ridge and on down to Elk. We have great friends there. We would escape the San Francisco work week for a backwoods weekend often. When we took the job at the Bidwell House Bed and Breakfast we first thought it was in Mendocino. We wished. We are were we are supposed to be, but visiting there is always a slice of heaven. The enchantment of the Redwood forest, ferns, blooming Azaleas and Rhododendrons, with the coasts bounty of lush colorful foliage, there is no other place more vibrant to photograph. I don’t think I have ever seen it more beautiful.

I am a Mendocino Wedding photographer because I want to be there as much as possible. My friend Khamoore  has Mendocino Floral Design there. Their work is progressive, stylish, timeless, stunning. I can’t wait to shoot one of her weddings.

The wedding we just photographed was just outside of Albion in the Redwoods. We photographed Alli Marion and her Beau Cory Fagerskog. I have known Alli since she was 13. Her mother and I worked together for years making weddings at the Inn. Making one more wedding, this wedding was truly special.

I was born at Kaiser Hospital on Geary street in San Francisco. Ironically my husband was also born there  2 and 3/4 months later. My grandmother, who raised me until I was 8, died there at 50 from complications of a gunshot wound. I lived on 46th and Taravel where the trolley car would rumble by every couple of hours a night. It was hard to distinguish a small earthquake from the electric street car. I was lulled to sleep by the fog horn and I was cradled by the fog. I was born in the early 60s and It was 1966 ish when I came to consciousness and the city was my blanket in which I was comforted by. The street was full a big families mostly Irish and Catholic. I was free. I ran up an down the streets with my friends all day. When it was time to go to school we walked the 8 blocks. I was safe. I remember one day specifically hearing  music coming from the only apartment on our street. The band was on the top floor practicing with the window open I could see them. The melody was magnetic. I ran toward the music as close as I could get and soon I was surrounded by a massive crowd of dancing people. It was load and clear and I realized there was music just like on the radio being played. It was Santana, it was 1971 and they were playing “No one to depend on.”

That song became the anthem in which I lived the rest of my childhood by. She was gone by 1972, my grandmother, and still missed deeply to this day. Yesterday was her birthday. I never forget it and yesterday my nephew’s  daughter was born. I have never met him or spoken to him, he found me a few days ago, to my great joy and to tell me they were expecting. His daughter was born yesterday. The same day as her great great grandmother Lucille.

After Lucille died we moved ten or so blocks over to Irving and 44th with my mom. She had to work  all of the time to support the 3 of us and my level of  freedom expanded. I ran every block. I ran into trouble, granted, it’s a big rough city, but I took mass transit at 9 and beyond,  alone where ever I wanted. I learned to dodge trouble, perverts and to get around. It gave me enough confidence to live and travel around New York City and Paris when I was just 18. The Zoo, Sutro Heights, Ocean Beach, The Warf, Golden Gate Park, Lake Merced,  The Cliff House all were my backyard. The other day, while I was in the city shooting for the Knot’s party at the Academy of Sciences, I went back to my old neighborhood. Both of my old homes are still there. Only the color of the paint has changed.

A day later I shot an engagement session up on Sutro Heights,  where as a child, I had climbed the cliffs around it and the ruins of Sutro Baths. I took this photo for me and I set my aperture at 22 on purpose. I wanted to see all of it. Now it sits on my desk top and I know I have a very big story to tell. Someday.

A view of Ocean Beach, The Sunset District, Daly City and Beyond from Sutro Heights

I am so happy to be photographing Liz and Jimmy’s wedding in June in Chico. They are such a sweet couple. I think this may be one of my favorite images ever.

A much needed road trip. Scouting for anything that moves me and of course always things to paint and write about.

Ian and I have 5 children. Our oldest is almost 25 years old. I started young, 21 and at times I don’t look 46, but man this Spring, I was feeling it. We haven’t had a trip alone in a good while.  We decided on a road trip this spring to the Monterey Bay aquarium and to the Hearst Castle or the Ranch as Hearst himself called it.  Being lovers of art, beautiful imagery and all underwater scenery it was a good choice. I was raised in the sunset district of SF and I miss the ocean all the time. We have never been south of Carmel by car and I have always wanted to the see Big Sur. I carry a crappy camera with me in my purse, too affraid to ruin my good portrait cameras and I reach for my camera often. We decided on this area for our love of food sealife and seeking warmer weather. We didn’t get it, it was cold and it rained, but it was beautiful.  Ian is a builder and Hearst Castle was eye candy. We could have stayed there for days. What a very special place. They offer 6 tours, we took 2.

Some of my favorites

with such ease

preperation

At the Met

I can feel the movement

Inside the Queensbourough Bridge for a Black tie affair, outside a sandlot with a baseball game going.

On the way to the Chapel

On the way to the Chapel on the Hill, Benziger Family Winery.

All set for Dinner in the Benziger Family Winery cave

On the shores of Lake Almanor

Looking out at Mt. Lassen

calm movement

I love the lines of her Dress

On the way to the Aspens

We are not fooled by hot days in March. In 1994 it snowed 5ft on my birthday which is the end of March. There seems to be a pattern of burst of warm sunshine followed by snow, rain and  hard freezes. I know when spring has arrived when the sand hill cranes are yodeling outside the fence on the meadow and when the robins, swallows and osprey are back. They are all back. The weather can act as nutty as it wants, we have made it through another winter. That is no small feat in our neck of the woods. They are especially long and hard here. We marked the first day of spring with an entire family having some sort of virus which runs the gambit of every symptom and lasts over a week; rough and boring week. My mind wants to run and hit spring hard with all my pent up winter and my body can’t move; harsh. Although I got caught up on the classics I have been meaning to watch, such as, ” How Green was my Valley”, “Guess who’s coming to dinner”, a BBC miniseries on Victoria  and Albert and another about coco channel and Schindler’s list is waiting.

I have made some pictures of the children while we watch our movies. What has worked for me as a creative is to step way from the thing I am working on constantly. I bounce between painting, writing, house duties and photography. Granted it does cause a rust for about 5 minutes which is quickly steamed out by the pent up energy of the pressure cooker of wanting to create. I consciously stepped away from bookings for the last 2 months to focus on marketing and other aspects of my business and creative life. I am glad I did, I feel the passion and excitement of creativity and I can’t wait to get at making pictures again. Here are few from this week.

One of my many muses

lala

Freda

That face

he's planning something

through the plant

little muse

I like it in Black and White

I see you seeing me.

poached egg on toasted whole wheat sourdough, our favorite.

Mike

trying to watch my show.