From the day I knew photography as a profession may be in my life forever.
I've sat down many times over the past few weeks to start this blog post, the first one on my new blog site, and it just doesn't happen. Every time I sat down to write the post it seemed, well just like another piece of business. And this—these photos, this blog, my business—is so much more personal than that. Frustrated I'd step away, to my new Facebook page to observe the goings-on, to responding to potential new clients, to fiddling with and agonizing over my pricing and whether it is working, and of course to editing photos, burning discs and delivering the final products to clients. I'd go on about the business of things while back at my blog I'd wonder when the inspiration from the heart would come...
It was about six months ago when I really got serious about setting myself up as a "big girl" business, portfolio site Facebook page and all. I did the research, invested the time, hired a professional illustrator for my new branding (thanks Melissa Herboth!), set up accounts, shelled out some money, announced a date and got myself organized and ready to launch a re-vamped photography business. All of this was an act of obedience to where I found God to be calling me, even if I couldn't completely understand why or what exactly it would look like. It had been seven years since my first paying photo gig and two years since I had been dedicating my time to photography full-time, yet I still hadn't established myself. Despite the fact that God was swinging open doors for me time and time again, I was hesitantly walking through them, cutting my eyes from side to side, uneasy about what lied on the other side. I was holding back.
I remember the exact photoshoot, the exact place I was standing when I knew that photography was going to be in my life forever, when I let go of what I thought was going to be my professional future and surrendered to what God was laying out before me. I was no more than one mile from my home standing in a private park in a neighborhood that I had never been to before. It was a Florida autumn. The wind was brushing through the trees. Spanish moss infused with the afternoon light swayed about. There was a small, glimmering lake to my left and the gorgeous Florida country-side to my right.
I felt incredibly fortunate, indescribably blessed that this was my job.
It felt like God himself was in that breeze. I breathed it in, I couldn't help but to smile and it was decided.
The family I was photographing that day was lovely as always with a story all of their own. Then a year passed. Life moved on. I was growing a business and moving forward, I had already commissioned my new logo, when the same family contacted me again but this time they were no longer a family as we know it. The mom was on the other end of the line in a conversation that started out with a photo request and ended up with a heart cry of the heartbreak of divorce. I spoke words that day on that phone I didn't know I could speak with a strength I wasn't sure existed. My heart ached and kind of rejoiced all at once.
I love hearing and telling the stories of beautiful young couples, happy families, and perfectly perfect newborn babies. But every story has it's heartbreak. (As a storyteller we know this all too well.) It is part of being human. Yet putting our arms around one another, lifting each other up and speaking hope and love into someone's life is part of being redeemed. When we are the hands and feet and hugs and encouraging words for God it can't help but to feel good. It feels like we are doing what we were created to do more in that moment than in any other. You see, it was there on the phone that day with a heartbroken woman that I realized that me being obedient to God's calling on my life for photography wasn't about establishing a business it was about putting myself in a place, in the exact place God wanted me, to be used in a specific way that didn't necessarily always involve taking pretty pictures.
I felt incredibly fortunate, indescribably blessed that this was my job.
I hate it sometimes that blind faith is so hard for me. I hate that I doubt. That I hold back. That I walk hesitantly through open doorways on shaky ankles, peering from side-to-side looking for where the pain hiding in the dark is going to lurch at me from first. But God seems to have the grace and mercy for me as I am learning to trust Him to give me little glimpses of His plans sometimes. And that is what He has done for me with Caroline Maxcy Photography. He has given me a little sliver of assurance that I am walking through the right door, on the right path and right in the center of His will on a humble journey with Him by my side.