Aimee & Jon’s Happily Ever After

Two weekends ago, I had the great pleasure of being both a bridesmaid and the photographer at my best friend’s wedding. I’ve known Aimee for 23 years, and I love her like a sister. Over the years, we have spent countless days together, playing board games, splashing in the pool, working on school projects...we went to summer camp together when we were kids, and were roommates our freshman year of college. It was such an honor to stand up beside her on the last Saturday of August and watch her exchange vows with one of the sweetest men I have ever met.

Aimee and Jon’s wedding was beautiful. The weather was perfect (especially lucky, considering that Hurricane Irene hit the state hard the following day), the setting was charming, and the bride was gorgeous. Aimee and Jon know a lot of talented people, and as a result the wedding was not only beautiful but also full of personality, and obviously created with a lot of love. Friends were involved in the creation of floral arrangements, the cake baking, dj-ing, tent decoration, application of make-up and hair styling, and photography. Aimee’s mother has a nice large back yard with a pond that created a lovely backdrop for the ceremony, and after the dancing died down and the music stopped, a bonfire was lit for the guests to relax around. The day was a joy to be a part of, and I am so happy for Aimee and Jon. I hope they enjoy many, many years of happiness together. Best wishes and love to both.

Thanks to Margaret of Margaret Michael Photography for being my second shooter.

Summer Reading

I just finished reading Summer Sisters for the eighth time. It has been one of my favorites for nearly fifteen years, and is the only non-children's book I have read with such regularity. The first time I read it I was 15, and I read it every summer for the next seven years. I am on my fourth copy because I love it so much that I am constantly lending it out and forgetting to whom I loaned it. It is a great story about the power of friendship, the importance of the decisions we make throughout our lives, and the way we impact the lives of others. I wasn't expecting anything different this time through, but after the 7 years that passed since my last reading, I found myself not only seeing the girls' perspective, but identifying more with the adult figures in the story. That was an interesting shift in my experience of the book, and it makes me wonder how it will change for me again in another seven years. I am sure some things will remain the same, though--I will only be able to read it during the summer, and I will still cry at the end.

Monday Morning Coffee

This is my favorite coffee mug in the world. It used to be my dad's, and I'm not sure how I ended up with it, but I'm glad I did. It makes me happy every time I drink out of it, so it's especially good for Monday mornings when it takes a little extra kick-start to get going. Happy Monday!

Sunday Morning

Happy Anniversary, Dads!

Today is the first wedding anniversary of my two dads. They have had a partnership for fifteen years, and were civil union-ed in 2001, but it has been only one year since they were legally wed by the state of Vermont. On this day when we celebrate our country's freedom, let us not forget all of our citizens who are denied freedom--freedom to love, freedom to live without fear, freedom most of us take for granted.  Let us vow to continue working toward a world in which everyone is granted equal rights, and no one is shamed for who they love, or who they are. Let us remember how lucky we are to live in this great nation, but not forget how much work we have left to do.

I wish all of you a happy, safe holiday full of love and light.

Adventures in Photography

I can’t believe it’s July already. The year is half gone, the days are getting shorter again, and summer is in full swing here in Boulder. Back in January, I made myself a list of goals for the next two years, and now seems like a good time to check in with myself and see how I’m doing. 

One of my first goals was to continue donating my time to worthy causes at least twice a year, and I am happy to say that over the past six months I have had the opportunity to work with two incredible causes four times. In March, I photographed an event for the Muscular Dystrophy Association in Denver. In January, April, and June I worked with the Boulder County AIDS Project, an organization I connected with in 2010 and have enjoyed working with several times since. 

The April and June projects for BCAP allowed me the opportunity to work with a couple of talented drag performers, which also furthered my mission to work with 3 new artists, photographers, or business people each year. I completed that goal when I worked with Tara Rynders and her fellow dancers and artists to capture their performance, “you & me”, a show created to “explore intimacy in performance look specifically at spatial relationships and the use of technology to augment an intimate relationship”. It was a beautiful opportunity to connect with my love of dance, meet new artists, and to feed my own artist’s spirit.

This fall, I have been privileged to book the wedding of my good friends Matt and Kelly, who will be wed in the great state of Maine. In the past I have only visited Maine for camping weekends, so in September I will be fulfilling my goal of working in a new location once a year.  

While I have not had a chance to get back into a chemical dark room, I have been working with black and white film again by way of having my old film developed and scanned into digital files. There is nothing like the smell and feel of a real dark room, but it’s a start, and rewarding in it's own way. 

The last goal that I have made progress on this year is to learn something new each month. I subscribed to a series of DVDs, arriving in my mailbox monthly, each containing interviews with successful photographers on their various specialties. I have learned quite a bit from the discs, and have also kept up on my reading of professional trade magazines and business books.  

So there it is. 6 months into my 2 year plan; 4.5 items down, 10.5 to go. I have enjoyed the way these goals have encouraged me to reach out, build new relationships with new people, and explore my photography in ways I may not have last year. The growth I have experienced as a photographer and business owner since January has given me more confidence and excitement about my work, and I can’t wait to see where I’ll be in December. Not a bad year so far. Happy July, everyone!

Poster design by Tony Sutera, photography by Elizabeth Henry-Hooker.

Endless Summer

Recently, I found a box containing nearly twenty rolls of film that had been shot but never processed. I didn’t know how old they were, but I have been shooting largely digital for several years now, so I knew it was like finding a time capsule of my pre-Colorado life. I started taking them in two at a time to have them developed, and it has been an interesting experience receiving the photos. 

The most recent roll is from the summer after I finished high school, shot with the Nikon FM-10 my dads bought me for graduation. The photos document our annual summer trek to Indiana to visit grandparents, and I believe this might have been the last time we went, just before the grandparents relocated to Vermont to be near the family. 

I have such fond memories of these yearly vacations, which were largely spent on the lake (whichever lake we had rented a cabin on that particular summer; it varied) and digging through thrift stores looking for the best, most interesting finds. The first year was a bit rough-- nothing tests the limits of a new step-family like putting three girls, ages 11, 14 and 16 in the back seat of a Chevy, with no air-conditioning and only one music player between the three of us, and driving half-way across the country-- but the experience grew on me in only the way a family summer ritual can. I miss those days of canoeing the lakes, looking for turtles, taking evening walks or runs with my sisters, baking cookies in a slightly musty, hideous rented cabin with orange shag carpet, mirrored walls, and bats flying around the living room.  Now that my sisters and I are spread (literally) across the world, I especially long for those summer days, with no school, before we had jobs and grown-up lives to worry about. 

Maybe some day my sisters and I will be able to take a trip together again, maybe to some exotic place where we can start building new traditions and memories. In the mean time, though, I’m sure glad I found these photos.