I met Casey last year at a girls photoshoot. Though our mutual friend had told me a lot about her over the years, I had no clue she would blow me away. Making friends is fascinating to me in general. We as humans find another human with that has the same amount of crazy as we do and decide we are going to make the effort to hang around them. I love it! When I bring someone into my life I tend to go all the way and I feel super grateful this girl was up for joining my weird, but lovely tribe. Not only is she amazingly fun to hang around, she is a natural beauty that makes me as a photographer want to pull my camera out and snap away.
I met Doug six months later on a dance floor at said mutual friend's wedding. As a photographer you are constantly striving to find the thing that makes your heart happy in your craft. I'm in a perpetual search for landscapes that make me feel small, shinny objects, ways to capture the night sky, and love that is so palpable you can feel it from across the room. You know that love, the kind that makes you jealous in a good way, the kind you want to find for yourself one day, or makes you want to be around the love you already have. The type of love that makes this world the beautiful place it is. Not all loves have this energy, this connection. I think that's why the term soulmate was invented, to set this type of love apart from all the other connections. It's a deeper vibration shared so perfectly between two people it changes the air around them.
This is the love I strive to find, because no matter what a couple like this is doing (like making funny faces... ahem, DOUG lol), you can feel the connection between them. They are the couple that can stand on opposite sides of a room and with a simple glance make out with each other through their eyes. They laugh at inside jokes only they understand, they gravitate like magnets always effected by the other, they have that mixed look of awe and desire burned into the smile they give each other.
It was this connection I felt as Casey clung to Doug on the dance floor in December and from that moment on I knew that not only was I slowly going to convince Casey to be my friend, but that I needed to capture them together as a couple. I've wanted to do a smoke bomb photo shoot since last summer and then like a lot of things do when I want to accomplish them, it become popular. I have a hard time feeling like I'm following the herd so I shelved the idea and moved on with my life. It might have stayed in that dusty recess of my mind if I didn't have friends who constantly inspire me and push me in my craft. Thank you to those of you who always say YES when I have hair-brained ideas (you know who you are, even if you weren't photographed this time). You make the world a better place.
Now that I've tried this out for the first time, with some success, I'm excited to get out and play around with it again!
Pro Tip: For those of you wanting to do your own smoke bomb photo shoot here are a few things to remember:
1. I actually wanted to shoot downtown Denver near graffiti walls but found out that smoke bombs are illegal in Denver county so check the laws in your area.
2. Call the police dispatch the day you do your shoot so passers by don't think there is a fire and call the fire department. The local fire department was aware of our shoot so they would not be blindsided by any calls.
3. Plan on the shoot going differently than expected. This really is a photo shoot you have to roll with the punches. It's more fun anyway if you simply play around with it.
