As Elizabeth and I were getting the kids ready for bed tonight, I happened to glance at the date on the calendar, which read “September 3rd, 2010.” I did a double take because I felt like it had some meaning to us, but couldn’t put my finger on it. It didn’t take long to remember, as five years ago to the date was a monumental day in our lives.
On September 3rd, 2005, Elizabeth and I were still staff photographers at the Evansville Courier & Press in Evansville, Indiana. Our first son was born less than two months earlier, and he already changed our lives in so many wonderful ways. Elizabeth’s mother and her sister Elaine made the trip to Evansville from Cleveland to see our little bundle of joy. It was also a somber day for all of us as we watched the destruction of New Orleans and the gulf coast on television from Hurricane Katrina.
It was also the day, after nearly a decade of being a professional photographer, that I packed my camera bags for our first wedding. This sounds odd now, but Elizabeth and I avoided photographing weddings like it was a disease. We were journalists, and no self respecting photojournalist would sell out by going over to the dark side! But hungry little infants have a way of making you take a peek over to that side. As much as we loved our jobs, working as a newspaper photographer was not exactly the fast track to financial security.
So we packed up our bags, and our pride, and made our way to Kim and Dan’s wedding over at the Methodist Temple on Evansville’s East Side. Between the two of us, we had photographed nearly every type of event you could imagine during our careers. But we each felt a quiet nervousness in preparation for our first wedding. I still remember working on our lighting for the reception in our basement the night before as Elizabeth’s mom put our son to bed. I still remember driving over to meet Dan and the guys getting ready and not even turning on the radio, my head filled with ideas, thoughts and worry.
The day was long. It was tiring. I remember how my feet throbbed as I tried to fall asleep that night after the wedding. The day was also incredibly fun. It was filled with emotion. We were invited, paid even, to document real moments. Just like at the newspaper. Except Kim and Dan actually wanted us there, unlike half of our assignments at the paper! We had four more weddings on the books in 2005, and what was supposed to be a short term financial band-aid for our newborn son grew into a plan for the following year.
The business grew, and grew some more. Amazingly, it kept growing. Elizabeth left her job when our second son was born in September of 2007 and we became 100% self employed six months later when I left my job. Two years ago, we started planning on moving closer to our families (Elizabeth is from Cleveland and I am a New York native) so we moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania a little over a month ago to be closer to both families. And today, we celebrate Elizabeth Vincent Photography’s Five Year Anniversary. We’re getting ready to get to sleep so there’s no time to party tonight! We have a wedding tomorrow and I have one Sunday, so we’ll celebrate next week.
Thanks to all of you who have helped make us a success, we are so grateful! Here’s to another five years!
We leave you with a photographe from Kim and Dan’s wedding!
