Letter #95 - Jaya

This summer I got to spend an entire afternoon with Jaya while I photographed her daughter's senior portraits.  Jaya is my parent's backyard neighbour, and she and her family have become good friends.  I wanted to write Jaya because she is such an incredibly thoughtful woman and always sending me greetings via my mother.  I miss getting to chat with her and her family as much as I used to since I got married and moved out of my parents home, but I hope that sending this note will let her know I still think of her often!

Letter #92 - Jim

I am a photographer.  I haven't formally studied photography, but I have had the great privilege of having some fantastic mentors in my life who taught me a lot, and who encouraged me on my journey, and critiqued my work.  About 5 years ago I decided to launch my own photography business, as a side job.  The intent was always to make a little extra money doing something I love, but not committing to it full-time.  Photography is a creative outlet for me, and if I'm relying on it solely for my income then it becomes more of a job, and I don't love it as much.  I didn't want to force myself to fall out-of-love with my passion, so I've never pursued it full time.  Even since I've been laid off I have amped up my efforts, but am still seeking full time employment that isn't photography.

Jim was one of my photo-mentors.  I met Jim by accident, because he happened to have arrived early at a worship service, and I was standing at the podium with my father, hyperventilating and sobbing my heart out.  I had agreed to say a prayer at the opening service of our church's world conference, and was the opening prayer before our President-Prophet preached.  There were about 5000 people in attendance, plus it was being broadcasted on many of the local tv networks, and world wide on a live streaming webcast.  The reality of what I had agreed to do had just sunk in, and my poor dad was trying to get me as settled as he could before the service began.  I was freaking out.  Jim witnessed all of this (unbeknownst to me).  When the service began and I settled in my seat (alone on the rostrum with the top 3 leaders of our church at the time... no added pressure!) - I discovered that when they tell you the lights will be so bright you won't hardly see anyone, they're lying.  I felt my heart catch in my throat again, and tried to look down without looking as though I was looking down.  That's when I saw Jim.  He gave me the biggest smile and just nodded at me.  The rest of the service, I just focused on him, and his smile never broke.  He got me through the entire thing and I had never even met him before.


That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and once he discovered that I had a budding interest in photography, he jumped on it and offered to critique some of my work.  From then on, he would take me around church events as his assistant, until he eventually promoted me to staff photographer (a very exciting day!).  He would invite me to come stay with him and his wife for a weekend to tour me around and take photos.  He taught me how to use photoshop, and how to better frame a shot, and gave me tips on shooting portraits.  He introduced me to his brother-in-law, another excellent photographer who also took me under his wing.


Whenever I hear from Jim I am always anxious to see what he has to say about my latest work, and eager to hear how life is treating him.  He recently contacted me and asked if I would be willing to share a testimonial that he could put on his website, so I decided to send it to him long hand along with a letter.


I may not see Jim as much as I like, and I may not keep in touch as much as I used to, but he's with me every single time I pick up my camera, and I am forever grateful for that smile!

Letter #79 - Karin

I'm weird about high school.  Most people grow more nostalgic for it as time goes by.  I grow less so.  High school wasn't necessarily bad for me, but it wasn't necessarily great for me either.  I remember even at the time thinking "this is what people remember as their best years? no thanks..."  At the time, I didn't really expect that 10 years down the road I would still be BFFs with all of these people.  That turned out to be mostly true.  Except for Karin.  Karin turned out to be one of those friends that you just keep finding your way back to, then wonder why you ever drifted off in the first place.  In the past year Karin and I have actually grown closer as were planning our weddings six months apart.  She nearly lived with me for a few days leading up to her own wedding, and I took a stinger in the tongue for her.  (I shot her engagement portraits... at a cider mill with ninja bees... who stung me on the tip of my tongue).

I intentionally held off on including Karin in this project until she'd had some time to recover from what I call wedding madness... so she could enjoy the card and not have to file it away so she wouldn't forget which gift it came with, or who to send the thank you note to :o)  Mostly I just wanted her to get some fun mail addressed to Mrs Gordon coz I'm 7 months into my marriage and seeing my new name on stuff still makes me grin!

Letter #72 - Matt

I am not a polygamist and yet I have two husbands.  I have the man I married and live with, and I have Matt.  Matt is my "camp husband"... in fact my legal husband is the one who dubbed him such, and almost formally signs me over to Matt when he drops me off at camp (he usually can't stay for the whole week).

Matt is responsible for my official introduction to my husband because the summer we met, Matt was a little starstruck by my husband and insisted I be the one to ask him to come hang out with us for the afternoon.  As a result there was endless laughter, and my husband (to be) asked for my number in the walmart parking lot (you just can't make this stuff up)

I created and now run a huge photo program at our church family camp every summer.  I started it out of sheer boredom one year, and it has turned into a staple component and significant fundraiser, it's pretty awesome.  Matt has been with me since about year 2 of this and the amount of time we spend together at camp, it's no wonder he's been dubbed my camp husband :o)

Matt is an incredible guy, I adore him.  He's dependable, creative, silly (which is important at 3AM), and a super sweetheart.  He is also a spiritual rock for me, even if he doesn't know it.  His faith and unwavering dedication to his faith inspire me constantly.  His willingness to stay up until all hours of the night, even if his work is done, just to keep me from going crazy, is beyond appreciated.  His ability to take the brunt of our last day activities so I can sleep in a little (I still usually send him to bed at some point before me on our last night) is saintly.  The fact that even though he moved out of state after our first year together at camp, he still saves his vacation time and pays all that extra money in travel expenses to be there as part of my team is simply awesome.  In fact, he did the same to spend his birthday with us last fall to celebrate our wedding.

About this time every year I start to get excited about camp, thinking up new ways of hopefully letting us get more sleep, and looking forward to more late-night silliness with Matt (such as roasting marshmallows over votive candles, or watching Sister Act 2 for the millionth time, or covering almost every square inch of visible skin in washable markers...)  Usually this eagerness results in increased texting and facebooking, but this year I decided to also send him a letter.  Writing him made me ever more excited for camp to come, because this year we will have a bit larger team, and I'm hoping my real husband will be there with us as well...

Matty I love you to bits... thank you for everything you do to support me, and to support our amazing squad, and just for generally being AMAZING.  Can't wait to see you in a few months!!!

Letter #58 - Alyssa

Some people just worm their way into your heart and stay there.  Alyssa is one of those people.  I almost never get to see her anymore, she and her husband share a phone to cut costs and she's awful with email, so it seems the only times I get to see her is if she happens to be at my folks' house at the same time as me.  We met Alyssa when my mum first got sick.  Things were so hard for us that no one even had the energy to clean, so we found some extra pennies somewhere and cashed them in with a house cleaning service.  Alyssa was one of the girls who showed up ready to work, and she rocked it out.  We began requesting her not only because of her skill, but because she was so caring and attentive.  She would run things by my mum, or suggest places that looked like they needed some extra care.  No added expense, just added professionalism.  She quickly grew to be a part of the family.  Then she got engaged.  We were all so excited for her, had her fiance over for dinner with her so we could meet him, and then they hired me to be their wedding photographer.  It was awesome, and the first wedding I'd ever been paid for.

Alyssa is an animal fanatic.  She used to always spend her breaks playing with our critters, and mourned our losses with us when Herman and Fowler went missing.  I decided to take our friendship into my own hands and sent her a letter, inviting her to get in touch with me so we could have her and her husband over for dinner sometime.  I also sweetened the pot by including some photos of the kitties :o)

I really hope she gets in touch with me, because I miss her a bunch.  As mum's health improved, we needed to cut costs and the cleaning became more of a luxury again, so now my folks only call Alyssa in on rare occasions.  Plus I don't live at home with them anymore, so when she *is* there, I'm not.  I would love to have her and Michael over for an evening to hang out, eat drink and maybe play some wii or something, I think they'd be totally game for that :o)

Letter #48 - Miranda

So either I've screwed up my numbering system, or I mailed a letter and forgot to blog it, because I actually have Miranda on my list as #49 but I can't find #48 listed anywhere.  I'm also going to cheat on this one just a little because the letter isn't mailed yet.  I have these two photos I want to include in it, and I can't print them yet because of some tech things that have been going on this week.  The photos are on a hard drive I can't currently access so I have to wait.  That being said, I'm still posting about Miranda and my letter to her.


Have you ever known someone in your life that could be described as your twin?  Not necessarily looks-wise, but tastes, personalities, mannerisms, etc?  I have had a bunch of friends I proclaimed were just like me, or I was just like them, or we were just like each other, etc... I was dead wrong.  Miranda and I are the same person.  It's creepy.  Creepy to other people, creepy to us, creepy.  Miranda and I were cabin-mates at camp one year, and then housemates in college, and we ended up going through a very weird, very creepy and yet kind of cool personality merge at one point.  If ever "shining" existed, Miranda and I can do it.  We can literally have entire conversation by exchanging about 5 words.  It blows my mind.  When I got engaged, the first person I thought of to ask to be our photographer was Miranda... she's the closest I could get to taking my own photos :o)  She agreed, then got engaged herself.  They ended up getting married the weekend after we did and she and I photographed each others' weddings, it was an awesome experience to be able to share our weddings with each other in that way... like a double wedding but without the shared spotlight :o)


Miranda and I don't typically keep in close contact, but she's been on my mind a lot these last few months and I decided she could use a note from me.  Or I decided I could use sending her a note, whichever :o)  Since we share a passion for photography I wanted to send her a couple shots I had taken on my winter zoo trip last month, and so now I impatiently wait to regain access to the drive where they are stored so I can do just that.  As I wrote my letter to Miranda I just kept drifting back to my wedding day, and then to hers... going over all the images in my mind and how incredibly awesome it felt to know that I could completely trust she was capturing my day the way I wanted.  I had a lot of bumps in the road the last month before our wedding and it was a blessing to have at least one thing that I knew couldn't possibly go wrong.  (the second thing was knowing my husband would be waiting at the end of the aisle for me... no doubts there!)


Miranda has had a huge influence on the person I am (since we are each other, after all).  There are personality traits she has that I have always greatly admired and strive to emulate in my own life more.  One of the greatest things I treasure about our friendship is that whenever she is around I just feel at peace.  I trust her implicitly, and because of that I rarely feel the need to stress when she's around.  I can't think of hardly a single other person in my life who does that for me, it's awesome.


Our lives may have followed different paths, both in getting here and from here on out.  We may have different outlooks on things, we may have different tastes, yet there is something fundamentally the same about us.  I don't know if it's a wavelength, a soul thing, a weird telekinetic power or what, but when I think of Miranda I think of myself, and all the ways in which we hope to influence the world.

Letter #38 - Brad

The advent of Facebook has made birthdays AWESOME to me.  Gone are the days of people maybe not remembering, or not even knowing that it's your birthday.  Now you can get birthday greetings from people you've never even met, or maybe know distantly, or haven't seen in 30 years but keep in touch with once a week by commenting on each others' status or photos.

This project is intended to focus on good old fashioned mail, so for letter #39 I'm using some of the knowledge Facebook has provided me with in order to bring some good old fashioned birthday greetings to a friend of mine.  Brad is turning 18 this week.  It seems crazy to me because it seems only yesterday he was one of those awkward little kids running around church camp bossing his little brother around (as an older sibling I can relate).  I had the great pleasure of taking Brad's senior portraits last summer.  He's turned into such a great kid, and has the whole world opening up to him as he finishes up his high school career and begins to contemplate the new chapter of his life.

I wish him so much success and have enjoyed watching him grow up.  I hope his birthday is amazing and that he enjoys receiving something as ancient as a birthday card.

Letter #35 - Bob

One of my many hats is photographer.  I discovered my love for photography sometime in high school, and, wanting to encourage my love, my dad made me a deal.  If I could keep my room clean for an entire month (by his standards), I could have his canon rebel to call my very own.  It is the only month in the history of my life that my room was spotless.

As I continued to develop my skill, I was fortunate enough to meet Bob.  Bob became one of my photo-mentors.  I was introduced to him through his brother-in-law (another one of my photo-mentors) at one of our church's World Conferences.  Bob and Jim were both staff photographers, and allowed me to tag along with them the whole week, learning, shooting, stealing their gear (with their permission...) and feeding my addiction... :o)

Several years ago, my work took me on a short trip to Denver (where Bob lives).  I had planned to stay an extra day to hang out with two of my colleagues who were going to be there from Mexico.  When I arrived, I discovered that my colleagues had neglected to inform me they were no longer able to extend their trips, and so I was stuck in Denver for a day all by myself.  It turned out to be a really really cool experience.  I hadn't had many opportunities to ever really travel solo before... for a change, I got to plan my whole day doing everything that *I* wanted to do, without having to worry about everyone else's interests.  It was really neat.  Somewhere in my planning process, it dawned on me that Bob lived in the city with his wife.  I got a hold of him, and he offered to meet up with me when he got off work, and take me up into the mountains to possibly get some good nature shots. It ended up being a really lovely evening, but I missed out on some photos as my batteries were pretty much dead by the time we connected.

I never write to Bob.  He and his wife get our Christmas card each December, but beyond that, I send the occasional email or we connect in person every few years at church events.  It was neat to be sitting down to intentionally send him a note.  I didn't write a whole lot, but it felt good to be connected to him in my heart in that moment.  I look forward to continuing to run into him over the years to come, and continuing to compare our photography and admire each others' work.

Letter #17 - Airen

As many people as I know, today I actually had a hard time thinking who I felt like writing to.  It was an interesting experience for me, because usually when I decide I need to send a note to someone, it's pretty easy to pick someone out quickly.  Today I thought and thought all day.  A few times I even went so far as to put the stationary in front of me with a pen, and nothing would come.  Finally I decided to try something.  I closed my eyes and just focused on my breath as I meditated for a moment.  Almost immediately, the face of my friend Airen entered my mind.  So Airen it was!

Airen and I met via my husband's network of musician friends.  She used to be married to a guy he performs with sometimes, and she and I quickly became friends.  Airen and I run with very different circles.  She's a rock 'n' roll biker chick, and I'm well, not.  We do, however, share views on many things in life, and we share a passion for photography and for cooking.  I had the privilege of photographing her wedding.  We also share a passion for yoga, though I hate to say I haven't been in probably a year... which I hate.  She is a true free spirit and I just love her.

Writing to Airen made me reflect on the artistic side of my life.  Whenever I hang out with her I always feel inspired to just go out somewhere with my camera and shoot until I run out of disc space.  I hardly ever get the chance to do so anymore... rather, I hardly ever make the time to do so... another thing I need to improve about myself.

I hope my card finds her in good spirits, and that she acts on the request I included :o)

Letter #16 - Susie Q

This letter went out to another BTS friend - Sue.  Sue was another person I didn't really start to get to know until later in the week, and even at that point not all that well.  She knew I was into photography and invited me to come visit her in Wisconsin some fall when the colours were at their peak so I could get some good shots to add to my collections... I didn't think much of it, but then on a whim, Austin & I decided to take her up on her offer and drove all the way up to Door County (so far one of the prettiest counties in the country, that I've seen at least!) and spent some time with her.  It was an awesome trip, and we had sooo much fun with her!  She and her boyfriend have also been to visit us once down here since then, and we try to keep in touch as best we can.

Writing to Susie immediately brought to mind images from our trip there... brilliant fall colours, fresh autumn air and bright warm fall sun on walks through the woods and through cute little towns.  It also allowed me to spend some time remembering our lovely evening chats.  Sue is a sweet, sweet lady, and a wonderful hostess.  She has had many challenges in her life, and sometimes I think the hugeness of her heart gets her in trouble (as many of us sensitive types can relate to), but she is kind and loving and I am always glad to hear from her.


I hope that this year brings her resolution to some of the questions she's had of life, and I hope that our paths cross again soon.  Who knows, WI isn't really *that* far away... maybe we can do a 2011 fall trip again!

Letter #6 - Wendi

Wendi's letter was a search & rescue attempt of sorts.  Wendi was a friend from our church family camp and could very well have ended up being a part of the Cube Squad (my super awesome photography team at camp) who simply stopped coming to camp.  The first year I thought maybe life had just gotten too busy, maybe they couldn't get the time off work or afford to be away from home that week, or something.  But then the second year went by, and the third, and the fourth... I have really missed her presence there, and her kids (who are BEAUTIFUL!)  The email address I had for her bounces back, and online searches have yielded no results.

Recently I was going through some old papers and came across my records from the last year she was at camp.  These records included a mailing address for her, so I am praying they haven't moved!  I spent a good chunk of my letter updating her on the major events in my life she has missed, and asking about her kids who must be in middle school or high school by now (insane!)  I really hope the letter reaches her, and that maybe I can hear from her in the future and reestablish that friendship.  I think of her often, and wonder whatever happened to them, and hope that whatever it was wasn't something bad, that maybe priorities just changed.  I guess we'll see... making extra sure this one has a return address on it.