What REALLY Inspires You…

I had a wonderful weekend and had the honor of having some very thought provoking conversations with several super talented people that encouraged me to put some thought into what inspires me as a person and as an artist.  

For most of us, we have some very real blessings in our lives that inspire us.  The list can get rather lengthy actually.  I venture to say that most of us would say our God, our children, our significant other, etc.  Even the small things sometimes don’t seem like a very big deal, but they are ALL big deals and in some way inspire us regularly.  

When I started in this business, I remember one of my friends, who worked in the food industry, saying to me “You know Tricia you may want to consider doing “food photography”…you could make a ton of money”, and I instantly thought to myself that there was absolutely NO WAY that I wanted to do that.  I didn’t completely realize why that sounded so awful to me at the time, but I did know that I wanted to shoot PEOPLE.  Over the years, the reason why I love working with people has become crystal clear to me.  Everything about them inspires me.  I am fascinated by their relationships, and to be honest, it doesn’t matter to me if the relationships are with spouses, parents, children, even strangers.  The interactions that they have with each other and the emotions that are stimulated from those interactions are without a single doubt what REALLY inspires me.  After every session that I have ever shot, I walk away and ALWAYS think of what my clients’ relationships mean to them and most importantly how fortunate I am that they just showered me with their relationships unconditionally.  I’m telling you right here and right now that there isn’t a green bean that I have ever seen that can give me the sense of warmth and satisfaction that I get from these people everyday and that PUSHES me every time to think to myself that I will continue to BE BETTER in all that I do in life. 

So, early this morning when I sat at my desk thinking about what pictures I would attach to this blog post, I decided that I would show these two that have NO people in them at all (he-he).  But even though that may be the case, there were people involved in the story of these pictures.  These were both taken last weekend when Chandler and I were doing the Mother/Son journey across country.  And just so that I don’t get accused of plagiarism, they were both shot by CHANDLER (better known now as C-WHITee Photography) on his phone.  He may just have a creative bone in his body and he certainly loved telling me about it.  I thought he did a wonderful job shooting exactly what I told him to shoot!  In all seriousness though, it was a wonderful trip and a great way to spend some quality time together.  Even though these are quick phone pictures, they are still captured memories that won’t allow either one of us to quickly forget the laughs that we shared.  These pictures will ALWAYS remind me to view life with laughter and VIVID, RICH meaning.    

I have no idea why I loved this bare, little tree standing all alone, but something about it was surreal and majestic to me. I loved the way the sun peaked through its branches onto the white, glossy snow all around.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, and as one of my favorite sayings goes “it simply made my soul sing”!  

Oh and this one is the REAL, VIVID memory of how we RAN OUT OF GAS at mile marker 153.  We lovingly refer to  it as STRANDED 153!!! 

ENJOY!!!