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What We’ve Been Up To

We just returned from WPPI 2010 (Wedding & Portrait Photographers International) in Las Vegas this past weekend, held at MGM Grand.  It is a massive event for photographer’s with more seminars than one could ever attend and a massive tradeshow, that literally took us a couple of days to walk through.

While we were there, Matt and I attended some of the seminars.  The first one that we found particularly inspiring was put on by a great photographer from the Edmonton area named Jesh de Rox.  I can’t begin to tell you how inspiring he was.  I even cried, and if Matt was honest, I think he’d say he felt like crying!  What is so inspiring about him, is his ability to really re-focus us,  as people in the wedding industry.  He brought us out of the “wedding industry” mindset that can so easily set in from having a busy schedule and reminded us what it is,  that we actually do.  We are privileged with  taking pictures of people in love and capturing moments that for the rest of their lives,  will remind them of how their lives together began.  He talked about how life can get hard at times (we all know that) and reminded us how powerful the images that we take can be in those difficult moments, for our clients.  It really made us think and has inspired us to add some new things to what we do.  It is all too new to start talking about  now, but stay tuned.

Then there was  Jasmine Star.  Wow!  What an awesome woman and photographer.  I had a chance to speak to her afterwards and realized that we had a lot in common….both Pastor’s Kids!  No wonder she was such a great public speaker, it definitely comes with the territory.

Back at the office the rest of the Xero Digital team has been working like crazy on production.  We stopped by this weekend to pick up some stuff and I looked around and so how much they’d completed.  Matt and I definitely don’t say it enough, but we know that we are so blessed to have such an awesome team who we can depend on.

What I learned

Vegas turned out to be a bigger learning experience for me,  than just in  the areas of  business and photography.  I actually learned a life lesson and I wanted to share it with you.  On the Thursday evening, which was our only semi-free time, we headed over to Planet Hollywood Casino .  We spent a couple of hours walking around through the mall and having dinner and then needed to head over to get ready for an awards ceremony, when our plans got a little interrupted.  While we were on the elevator the door slid open, and there on the floor  just past the people exiting,  a woman sitting on the dirty parking lot pavement was crying,  as if she had lost everything.  I wanted to get off and help her, but it all happened so fast the door had shut and we were on our way to our car.

I felt awful.  Matt and I are people who more than anything want to practice what we believe in.  In the scriptures, it is all summed up in a word…..LOVE.  Helping her or at least trying to, seemed like a simple way to do that and we had just let it slip past us.   On the way out of the  parking lot Matt decided we should pass by where she had been sitting and quickly prayed that God would help us,  help her if she was still there…..she was.

Turns out my new friend was struggling with something that all of us have struggled with at some point or perhaps still do…. insecurity (she named it that herself…I’m not a psychologist.).  She immediately opened up to me as I asked her what had happened and if there was anything I could do.  She’s  just gone through a failed marriage and was now with a new guy in Vegas, that she had left her whole family for (including children) and he had just abandoned her, telling her that he could do “better”.  With no money to her name and no one to turn to, there she sat.   She repeatedly told me how she had always needed a man to love her and that she never felt good enough, and as soon as this man showed her attention, she followed him to Vegas.

Her story isn’t so different from lots of girls/women.  I had just spent the day looking at all the beautiful people of the Las Vegas strip and feeling like I didn’t measure up.  (Trust me, being 3.5 months pregnant in Vegas is not fun!)  An hour earlier if I had seen her in the bar I may have envied her, but now with the false eyelashes dropping off and sitting on the dirty pavement I heard her heart and looked past the facade….she needed to be loved!  She asked me to pray ( I hadn’t said a word about being a christian) and I did.  She told me that she knew God had sent me because she had just prayed that he would send along someone to help her ( I love God moments!).  We finally were able to contact her boyfriend and we drove to meet him.  I told her that I would continue to pray for her, she told Matt to never forget to cherish his wife and his relationship (gotta love that! LOL) and with that she exited the car and went back to her life.  In the end I don’t know how much I helped her, but she definitely helped me.  I, like her, will soon have 4 children, she told me she is a singer,  I used to be a singer (in church circles),  she loves to write, so do I……..but she hadn’t dealt with her insecurities and it was eating her life up and all her potential.  I am sure that all of that was coincidence, but I felt like I needed to learn from it.  What I learned is that,  insecurities need to be dealt with because they don’t magically go away with age and that relationships and the giftings you have need to be nurtured, so that as I get older I don ‘t look back at what could have been.  It made me so thankful for the amazing friend I have in Matt who wants to see me be all that I can be, as cheesy as that sounds.  It made me also think about all the weddings that we attend and all the details that we get caught up in, like the dress, the flowers, the program running smoothly and that is beautiful and fun, but we can’t ever lose sight of what is really happening……..two people coming together in life,  to support eachother and love eachother, no matter how they look (even when they are 3.5 months pregnant with their 4th baby!).  That is truly awesome and that is true beauty and that is what we feel so privileged to photograph.

Thanks for reading!

Cheryl