Story matters here.

When I first began snapping away with a camera, I couldn’t stop thinking to myself, “Really? This is the road you want to go down? But it makes no sense.”

It’s only been in the past few days, after much soul-searching and re-searching courtesy of Seth Godin and Barnes & Noble, that something inside me has clicked. And it’s starting to make sense why, after years of busting my butt academically and churning out papers like crazy and thinking that OBVIOUSLY I would pursue some high-and-mighty “real job,” I’ve chosen to be a photographer.

In his book All Marketers Are Liars, Godin talks about how the most successful businesses and entrepreneurs are those who can tell stories about their products really well. He uses as an example Riedel, the company who makes wine glasses. They came out of the woodwork and told people a story of how different wines needed differently-shaped glasses to complement and bring out their unique qualities. And wine drinkers around the world bought it (heck, so did we… we registered for them for our wedding!), despite the fact that true blind taste tests showed absolutely no difference in taste when wine is consumed from a fancy-pants glass intended to coax out all its subtle notes and flavors than when it is served up in a regular kitchen glass. The truth is, as Godin points out, that we, as consumers, tell ourselves stories all the time, and we want to believe stories that fall into our worldview. We believe that buying organic food and taking our vitamins and buying the latest version of software will improve the quality of our lives in some form or fashion, regardless of any actual evidence to that fact. It’s all about perception. Something that very well may not enhance our lives actually does because it allows us to believe a story about our lives being better because of it.

So he got me thinking about this whole story-telling thing, and I’m starting to see that the puzzle pieces of my life that seem like they could never fit together actually do, because they all point to one thing: I am a storyteller by nature.

Rewind to the beginning of my life , shall we? Yep, I was the classic nerd. The one who didn’t play sports and had asthma and wore glasses and… read books. Lots of books. It wasn’t possible to go to the public library too many times. In fact, I was often disappointed that I could only check out a certain amount of books… even if the maximum was like, 20. In fact, I didn’t read- I devoured. So many of my childhood memories are attached to the stories and characters who played such an important role in my life. Alice and Peter Pan and Lucy and Ramona and Amelia Bedelia and Nancy and Max. Just to name a few.

As I grew older, it became pretty clear that my gift was writing. It was something that came so naturally to me, something that I didn’t really have to work at like I did at math and science and… ugh… gym. My favorite classes were always English classes. My favorite teachers were always English teachers. Though I didn’t always particularly enjoy the assigned readings, I loved writing about them. To me, there was something fascinating about reading and researching and then formulating an idea, an opinion, that somehow brought all that together in a creative and concise piece of writing. I loved printing out the final draft onto warm white paper that smelled faintly of ink, and then carefully stacking the papers and stapling them and presenting them in a crisp, new manilla folder. Yep. NERD ALERT.

This path continued well into my college life. When I first began the process of picking a major, I tried so hard to find something that seemed more “acceptable” than English. I went through phases of considering architecture, interior design, international business…. but at the end of the day, I had to follow my heart, and my heart told me time and again that my passion was writing.

Yet I also began being pulled in different directions. As I took a variety of electives, I found other little “mini-passions,” if you will. One of these was film. I actually ended up just being a couple of credits shy of a film minor, but alas, summer school just wasn’t in the cards for me, so I opted out. But I took some absolutely wonderful film classes, with professors who were SO full of passion for cinema. It was enthralling, really, because here was the chance, again, for me to write and to engage in a story, but this time there were so many other players than me and the author. Suddenly, I was paying attention to music and cinematography and lighting and wardrobe and facial expressions and tone and color… all of these other aspects that helped to tell a filmmaker’s story. And truthfully, I found it wildly fascinating. But I knew I could never be a filmmaker. In fact, I really didn’t think I WANTED to be a filmmaker. But I couldn’t help but wonder how this love for film could play a role in my future.

And now, here I am. A photographer. A professional storyteller. And my medium is no longer simply words, and my audience is no longer simply my professors, and maybe a handful of peers. I now have this platform fueled by a blog and social media and all sorts of other technology, to reach a broader audience. A MUCH broader audience, in fact. And I now have this instrument, a camera, to bring a whole new level to my love for storytelling. And better yet, the stories I am in charge of telling are… true. But not boring true. They’re there, and they’re waiting for my voice and my eye to share them with this newfound audience. What is so wonderful about photography is that it combines all of the creative forces that I’ve always felt have pulled me in different directions, not the same one: art, music, writing, editing, interpreting. And now I have so many more TOOLS beyond just words to tell stories: light, color, music, mood, directing, etc. Something I’m beginning to learn, though, is that it’s super tempting for many story-telling artists to let the tools be the end rather than just the means to the end. I’ve seen so many films, photographs, and essays that, while technically “perfect” and rather beautifully crafted, lack any sense of authenticity and emotion and inspiration, because they simply fail to tell a story that resonates with even a few people. I don’t want to be that kind of artist. The kind that cares more about the art itself than the purpose of the art, which I feel is to reach out to others, to communicate a message, an idea, an emotion, to reflect back to others their stories in a way that sheds new light and meaning on their lives. And I know I risk sounding like some more-philosophical-than-thou wacko, but it’s the honest-to-blog truth.

I’m also discovering that many of the things I do that are considered by many to be a waste of time, or at best just an entertaining way to pass the hours, is actually just ongoing research. Jamie and I watch a LOT of movies (thanks to Netflix and Redbox!), and some people think that’s stupid. But I truly find so much inspiration in them, even if sometimes they are awful. Because it forces both of us to think about the world a little differently than we did before, and, for me anyway, to analyze the art behind the story that was told. Jamie understands by now that I need a few moments of “quiet time” when the credits begin to roll to really process what I just witnessed and experienced. And then sometimes we talk about it. Sometimes not. But at the very least, what good is a movie, no matter how silly it is, if it doesn’t mean something to you, if there isn’t the least shred of authenticity behind it?

And this brings me back to the whole English major thing. I think it’s really tragic that I’ve been conditioned to feel a twinge of embarrassment when I tell people what I got a degree in. Like it was a total waste of four perfectly good years of my life. It’s also why it took me so long to come to terms with the fact that it’s truly what I wanted to study more than anything. But you see, there’s more to it than reading some books and writing some papers. English has taught me to be an effective communicator, and that’s a skill that has become fundamental to everything I do, be it leading a shift at Starbucks or editing a batch of images and putting them into a slideshow or making casual conversation with someone I barely know or writing this blog. And (most) everything I do somehow becomes a foundation for the next stage of my life. And that stage is now this: photography. It’s not the medium I began with. I haven’t had any formal training like I have with English. It’s not something I’ve been doing since I learned how to walk. But here it is, and now, NOW it’s starting to make sense how all the random things I love and have done fit together.

Recently, AMC has been doing a series of advertisements centered around this mantra: “Story matters here.” You may wonder why I bothered to delve into this much detail about my personal history when for crying out loud this is supposed to be a photography blog. I guess I just feel like I want you to understand that behind the camera, there is a human being. A hot mess of a human being, granted, but one whose life experiences and passions have completely and totally made her the person she is: a storyteller by nature, a photographer by trade. God help me if I ever start referring to myself in the third person as a means of sounding more professional. I can’t emphasize enough that more than anything, more than beauty or knowledge or power, I crave authenticity. That’s the kind of person I want to be. And hopefully that’s the kind of person you’ll trust to tell your story. Story DOES matter here.

And I guess since photography blogs don’t generally have this much text, and since I don’t really have any recent work to share with you, and I’ll give a little sampling of stories that have brought meaning to MY life: