Evidence of Changes

The program of recovery that God has given me, and that I choose to work today does just that, it works. I'm not referring to sobriety right now. I have evidence every day that it works in regards to sobriety as day after day passes without my having the obsession to drink and drug return. But that is not the main purpose of the program. The true purpose of the program is to connect me with my Higher Power, to effect the changes in my character that I could never change with my own will power and to show me how to live a life worth living. Evidence of these things still sometimes surprises me and definitely encourage me.

I spent 14 hours yesterday working as a wedding photographer. I began shooting rehearsal at 9, documented the day, and finished with the wedding and after events about 5. Then after an hour break, I began going through the images I had shot, making my cuts, deciding what to use and what to throw away (much like taking inventory), and doing what I could to improve the ones that were worthy of keeping. I estimate that I have a couple more hours of work to do, and then I can present the bride and groom with their pictures.

Where the evidence of changes in my life came in is that I enjoyed it thoroughly. By lunch I had begun working on thoughts and plans of how I could begin doing wedding photography regularly. What amazes me about this, is that as a professional photographer, I refused to shoot weddings for years. I hated doing it. I only did a couple and always swore to avoid such hell in the future. I claimed it was a soul killing enterprise for an artist.

But it never was about creativity or lack of challenge. The fact is that there is plenty of opportunity for beautiful and artistic photography with weddings, and also the chance to take the journalism documentary style photographs that I love. Weddings are one of the few things I can do now that offer a taste of the photojournalism career I threw away and destroyed during the time that I was busy building up the wreckage of my past. And yet, I still refused to consider shooting weddings. I still hated the very idea of it.

But as I applied reflection and inventory to my thought process, as I referred back to the things I learned about myself during the fourth and fifth steps, as I got rigorously honest about my reasons and feelings I learned something I had never been able to admit to myself before. My hatred of shooting weddings had nothing to do with creativity and artistic merit. It had everything to do with fear, how I felt about myself and my self worth, and how I responded to pressure. My fears have been reduced and dealt with through working the program, my understanding of my value and abilities has grown and changed, and my natural instinctive reactions to pressure, and what even causes pressure today for that matter, have changed drastically. These changes have made me a better man. They have given me a life worth living. And they have turned me 180 degrees from the direction I took in photography before, where I feared and hated the idea of shooting weddings for a living, to the place where I can be excited about the freedom and possibilities such an endeavor could afford me. I thank God that He gave me the willingness to give of my time and talents as a wedding present for two very good friends, because it gave me a glimpse of who I am today and how I have changed that I truly needed to see. I am grateful for the opportunities I have in my life today. I am grateful that the prejudice I stayed imprisoned by has been removed so that I can see the art and beauty in life around me, even in the idea of wedding photography.