(warning- this is a long post.  coffee may be required)

For those of you who know me well- when I’m quiet on the blog, it’s not because nothing is going on… it’s because I’m so busy, that I just can’t find the words to share what’s happening in my life.  I keep trying, but coming up short with the blogging.   It’s like seeing an old friend after a year apart-  do I start with the juicy details of my life?  or simply blog my favorite weddings and engagement sessions?   Do I tell you how inspired I am by a project- or how stressed I am about falling short on the blog?

But right now something deeper is going on, so I thought I’d start there.  I’m always, and I mean ALWAYS looking for ways to improve. Whether personally, professionally, or artistically.  I’m kind of like the eternal college student, yes I actually went back to college to learn film AFTER I had my master’s degree and a successful  business.

Last year I spent several months working with THE top photography consultant in the industry- we spent countless hours digging deep to get clarity on WHAT I do,  and how to focus my business entirely on doing what I LOVE.  It was an amazing, awakening experience which truly blossomed my idea of business and photography.  And  now I’ve gone down the rabbit hole again, this time working with  the amazing Simon Sinek on discovering WHY I do what I do.

So a few weekends ago, I was down in LA photographing my first wedding of 2012.  Lucky for me, when working in LA I have free room and board at my mom’s house- the place I called home for 17 years.   I love having the chance to go home and visit  family, and  this time something very significant shifted for me.

As I was sitting in the den watching TV, I glanced up and noticed this portrait- an image which had been on the wall for the last 25 years, yet I never really NOTICED it.  There my family was… pretty plain looking, in our (horrible 80’s) Sunday clothes.  It was a perfect picture of how we physically LOOKED, yet I couldn’t help but notice how inaccurate it was.  There was no emotion, no connection, nothing that told a story of WHO we were, or HOW we loved each other – just a snippet of what we LOOKED like (awful 80’s hair and all).

I stared at this image for what seemed like an hour,  fascinated by WHY someone would take this picture: perhaps to document what we “looked” like in 1980, perhaps to make money…. but what was lacking was “WHY!”.  The exact thing I’d been exploring for the past few months… WHY take a picture?  WHY do what I do?  WHY do I love it?  WHY is it so important?

Then a week after returning home, I  received a call from  my friend Leah Hotchins,  the founder of the F.I.L.M Project –an organization of professional photographers who donate family photo sessions to cancer patients.  She asked me to do a session for a single father of 4 small children who was in stage 4 cancer.  I called that same day to set up the session, only to find that  he had already passed away.  I cried. I ached. I literally felt sick.

After getting off the phone, I spent an hour kind of roaming around my office aimlessly, trying to get a grasp on things.  I stared at some beautiful images I have on my wall of  Madyline and I laughing deeply together when I started to realize my WHY.  Suddenly I UNDERSTOOD how important photos are… how important it is to not only have pictures of what we LOOK like, but to have images of HOW WE LOVE.   I love  the images of us laughing!   I would literally run into a burning building to save them…. because the photos don’t just show what we look like- they INSPIRE me, They REMIND me of how much we love each other, and why.   Now that Mady is 9 years old,  there are surely moments when it’s a challenge to remember the innocence and bliss of  her younger years… Yet I can always look at those images, and re-experience the love I have for her.  It’s truly a gift.  The children who lost their father will never have those heartfelt images to remind them.

I realized, photographs help us RE-EXPERIENCE. They INSPIRE us, and invoke FEELING from within us.  Back in the early days of photography when people had their portrait taken this wasn’t the case- portraits were  literally to archive what people looked like.  But today when every device we own has a camera in it, I think we’re taking pictures for different reasons…. and I think we WANT something different from our photographs.

For me, I want to look at an image and really remember what I was feeling in the moment….  And that’s what I want to create that for my clients.  For my wedding clients, I want them to be able to re-experience the bliss they  had on their wedding day years from now.  When things get difficult, as they do in all relationships, they will have beautiful images to remind them of  and re-invoke their love.  And for my female boudoir clients-  one day when their bodies are aged and lacking that “luster”, they can look back and remember the sexiness that’s inherent within them.   The sexiness that doesn’t fade with age.

As I explore “my why”, I’m coming to understand what I believe about photography… and this is surely going to evolve over the course of this discovery, but here’s where I’m at today.

I BELIEVE that photographs are not to help us remember what we look like… they are to help us EXPERIENCE HOW WE FEEL…. How we love… How we hope.  I KNOW that images can transform our ideas about how we see ourselves and others… and can hold our grandest vision of ourselves.   They can re-ignite our love, inspire passion, and invoke an excitement for life.

xo- Melanie Soleil  (thanks to Nudrat Owens for the beautiful photo in this blog post!)