This past Sunday my girlfriend, Julia, and I went to Five Points MARTA station for the #WeLoveAtl meetup. A bunch of local photographers that have contributed to the cause met up there to check out a retrospective of some of the work that’s been featured in the two years since the project was founded. All together there was 750 images on display – a truly massive project and accomplishment  on behalf of the crew at #WeLoveAtl

I had heard that one of my photos was on display down there, but had no idea HOW it was displayed. I assumed it was printed at a smaller size like most everything else on display for the show.

Wrong.

It was a backlit print that was bigger than I am, of a portrait I had shot for 45×45, a community photography project here in Atlanta. My girlfriend was more excited about it than I was when we saw it I think, but I gotta say, it felt pretty good seeing it like that. It is always a great  seeing your work reproduced in a good way. Especially when you know that it is helping support a good cause.

I titled this post  “Another Dream Come True” because this experience has been for me. A few years back I specifically remember being in Lenox Square mall here in Atlanta, and seeing a backlit black and white beauty / fashion shot. It was an ad for some kind of facial product or makeup. It was beautifully done, and it being backlit as it was just made it – shine – literally. At that point I had seen my work being used on billboards, in magazines, on album covers, etc. But, I had never seen one of my shots as a large backlit ad like that. I dreamed of one day having my work displayed in a similar way.

The fun story about this shot is that I found this exact perspective I wanted to shoot from. My hope was that I would have somebody walk up a look at the portrait, while still having people at the right spots in the foreground – as you see here. Well, I stood in this same exact spot for – I’d say 45 minutes to an hour – waiting. It never happened. I did have somebody walk up and look at the photo, but there was a bunch of people on the platform around them at the time, one of which was between them and me. I also had people in the right place in the foreground at various times, but never did it happen all at the same time. I’m not a photojournalist though. I’m a commercial photographer. I have no professional obligation to not set up such shots, and I had other things I needed to be doing besides standing around the train station all day, waiting for a shot to happen. So what’d I do? I made it happen, that’s what. I left my “post” and asked a complete stranger, a girl on the other side of the platform, to go stand about five feet in front of it for me and just look at it. She did. I shot that, and then got two other shots with people in the foreground where I wanted them to be. And – here you have it – three shots combined into one. My goal here was to show the work in the environment it was shown in for my tearsheet page here on my website. The square format shot I’ve posted above is just one shot and is completely candid / photojournalistic in nature, and was captured after I took this one. I like it almost as much as this perspective I think. This is what I set out to create to begin with, though. Which is your favorite?

And – there I was last Sunday – standing in front of  a dream that had become reality. I’m sharing my thoughts about it now, because I need to remind myself on a regular basis of all that I have to be grateful for in life. I’m literally living my dream. So many things involving photography that were once only a dream have now become a reality for me. I need to remind myself of this, because it is so easy to get so focused on what you want, or where you want to be, that you forget to appreciate all that you already have and what you’ve accomplished.

I’m my own worst critic. I beat myself up all the time, because I don’t feel that I live up to my potential most days: I don’t work hard enough. I’m not focused enough. I’m not as productive as I want to be. I want bigger jobs.

Blah Blah Blah Blah…

I do push myself to get better at all of these things. But, I also have got to remind myself of all that I already have: Dreams and goals to work towards. A career that I care about.  A comfortable place to live and work. A great girlfriend that seems to adore me. Great family and friends. Money in the bank. Food in my fridge. I’m healthy. I go to and serve at  a church that I love. I’ve got plenty of clothes to wear.  The ability to work for myself rather than being at somebody eles’s mercy. I can go on and on.

I’m wrapping up the most consistently steady year I’ve had thus far. Life is pretty sweet for me right now – and my clients, family, friends, and God have been the key to this. Thank you all for helping my dreams come true – one at a time. Merry Christmas, Y’all.