Richard // Senior Photos and the Day All of My Cameras Died

I pushed my shutter button and waited for the photo to take as it has done all of the hundreds of thousands of times before it. As I looked through my viewfinder, however, all I could see was black. And the shot that popped up on the back of my camera was completely blurred and useless. That little sick feeling threatened its way from my throat down to my stomach as I held it together to try again. Click. Black. Click. Black. I took an extra deep breath to calm my tummy and filled Richard and his mom in on what was happening. As I was turning my camera around in my hands, pushing buttons, changing settings and testing batteries, I was internally kicking myself at a major mistake that I made before the shoot. I had JUST flown into Phoenix the night before, so in my haste to get everything together for my shoot, I made the decision to leave my back up cameras at the place where I was staying. This was the first shoot in YEARS where I had decide to bring only one body and wouldn’t you know, it was the shoot where my camera died. Of course.

Knowing that my camera had defeated me, we decided to just meet a couple of mornings later to finish up with the promises of me treating them to coffee and lots of I’m sorries. Richard and Amanda (his Mom) couldn’t have been more amazing as I’m sure not everyone would be. They gave me huge hugs and told me they were excited to hang out with me again :).

The next day in between our shoot, I had another shoot lined up that I grabbed my back up camera for. And, you won’t believe me when I tell you, my back up camera died. It gets worse; my second back up decided to malfunction as well. Yes, I just said that.  And, yes, that really did happen. And, yes, as a photographer, it is my worst nightmare. And I still had several family shoots plus a wedding to shoot before I flew back home.

Here’s where I thank the Lord for graceful, amazing, salt of the earth people in my life and God himself for working everything out. I prayed really big and I believed really hard. Then I had to act. After discovering that both of the rental stores in Phoenix were closed for the holidays for the next 2 days, I phoned a couple of my photographer friends and explained everything and wouldn’t you know, they handed their babies (big expensive cameras) over without batting an eye. I am beyond grateful. Really, truly, they saved me more than they know, grateful.

Both evening and morning light for Richard’s shoot was quite the silver lining for me. For him, he got an extra day to figure out how to tie his bow-tie. In the end, I had an incredible time shooting his senior photos (both days) and he really couldn’t have been any more amazing about the whole thing. Not to mention that little grin and those eyes were quite fun to shoot as well!

Richard, I wish you the best of luck in the rest of your last year of high school. I know without a doubt that you’re going to do amazing things these next several years! Thank you for being so darn amazing!