Variety and record number of bookings highlight a great end to 2012

2012 ended before the end of the world and I have a lot of work to show for it. Several family portrait sessions, 4 weddings, a couple animals and some construction documentation capped off the busiest and most varied December of my career. Thank you to everyone and look for more from these shoots later!

Jeremiah and Veronica got married at one of my favorite venues, Cypress Grove Estates.

Ok, it was a tad cold for Kim and Frank's oceanfront wedding in Sarasota but wow, what a sunset! They also happen to be one of the most fantastically interesting couples I have ever worked with starting with the fact that Kim was a zombie in the original Romero Dawn of the Dead series of movies!

Maternity shoots are not something I really advertize but I love doing them! Stacey was so brave and willing to wade into the wilderness semi au natural to get this shot. Her husband Michael was a great sport too :) I love the power and variety of what we captured that day.

This image (above) is probable my favorite "grab" shots from a session ever. The kids were perfectly behaved, and that's saying a lot because this was a long time into the shoot. Forget the yawn that is classic but it's Dana's look that steals the show. They (well, ok, Dana) love this shot and so do I not because everyone is beautiful but because it's a real moment that tells a story. Sometimes all the planning in the world can't lead to the best image.

This was sorta impromptu at the end of a family session. Some senior portraits!

"Under the Bridge" is part of an ongoing project I am working on for a construction bonding company. It's not my usual thing but I get to flex some muscles that I don't usually use photographing weddings and portraits.

Family session for good friends of our. This is the second time I've done a session with them. Never uneventful :)

I finally got to take another shot at my "Blue Boardwalk" image from years ago at Melinda and Doug's Paradise Cove wedding.

Jennifer hired me to document her husband Andy's 40th birthday bash a few months ago and we got together again for their Christmas pictures.

I've never seen two people... or dogs... trying to upstage each other like this. Classic!

My last family portrait for the year. Jennifer (different one) and I have worked together for years. She's a great event planner who has sent me many clients over the years. I was happy to get to return the favor somewhat.

In Passing...

Friday, October 5th, 2012 my run of good fortune ended. Up to this point in life I had not been seriously touched by death. I'd only attended one funeral in my life and that was for a co-worker I didn't even know that well but attended out of respect. On this early fall day though my father passed after several months of fighting various ailments. Eventually he succumbed to a broken hip and general weakness brought on by his one remaining kidney beginning to fail. His passing was peaceful, happening as he slept, hours after we moved him to hospice. The miracle of it all was that he managed one more bout of consciousness while I visited him that morning before moving him to hospice  I was able to speak to him for a bit and while most of what he said didn't make sense, I got a few more smiles and know how lucky I was to have those moments.

This ordeal has certainly taken a toll on me personally but also it's impacted my business since I devoted more and more of my time to family. Thank you for your patience while I get back on track and get all my various projects going again.

Sincerely, Robert N. McClory Jr.

Joy

I am lucky that on a weekly basis I get to witness something I have come to recognize as essential to a good life; joy. I'm not necessarily talking about the joy that your God gives you or the joy even a husband or wife can give each other. Not even the joy that witnessing your first child being born can give you is transcendent if you don't allow it to be. The joy I see is only possible when it comes from within. It's a choice to embrace unadulterated, unfiltered, and unfettered happiness. To exude and experience pure joy is, I think, a key to a good life. It's important to allow God, big moments, other people  and those good things in life to move you to a higher place than you were before. It's not that simple happiness isn't good enough, and it's not to discount positive moments presented to us by the world but the choice to feel joy and be elevated by it is something that can't be made for us. I see happy people all the time who still seem like they are missing something. Happiness compared to joy is like contentment compared to excitement. Both are ok but one will take you places beyond the status quo.

There is a certain kind of excitement, passion and radiance that joy adds to the world. Simply being happy is a more personal, individual thing that is less contagious. To allow yourself to experience the world's gifts and expect that they will move you to a place where passion intersects spirituality is a key to everything good in life.

I see this in the couples I am fortunate enough to work with. I see joy radiating from them and when the priest, pastor or officiant talks about never forgetting to say I love you, I think a better interpretation of the sentiment would be to never allow joy to leave your life. Foster within you a need to feel the intense goodness of the life you live and in return your life will continue to reward you with more to feel that way about.

The very best marriages, I believe, are those where joy is so clearly present. It only takes a few moments in the presence of an old married couple to realize that while they will say communication is the key to a long, happy marriage, the truth often is held in the sparkle in their eyes and the smile that still touches their lips as they do their communicating. It's not the words they say but the joy they give and receive that makes the difference.

When we lose our ability to feel and present joy to the world, we lose our ability to love and that is surely no way to live.

So let's all vow to be conveyor of joy this holiday season. It could change the world if only in our little corner of it :)

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and with any luck at all, a joy-filled 2012 - Robert McClory

This should be required watching for anyone trying to live life...

 

R.I.P. Steve Jobs. It's already cliché to wax poetic about how he changed our lives but that won't stop me. I have been using Apple products for over a decade and I don't think there is a minute of any day that goes by that isn't in some way connected to, influenced by or impacted by something Steve Jobs had a hand in introducing to my world. Famously, in my inner circle of friends and family, I recently bought my first non-Apple computer in over a decade but that didn't mean I stopped loving what Apple and Steve did for computing, music and consumption of media in general. As a photographer, artist, writer and avid technology user, I have been quietly inspired by Jobs and his vision over the years in ways I wasn't even aware of until now.

One of my favorite books of all time is The Fountainhead about, among other things, an architect who steadfastly refused to compromise his vision to suit the world around him. While his designs were clearly ahead of their time, his contemporaries hated him for having the nerve to try to achieve greatness through innovation rather than imitation. More than any other figure in my lifetime, Steve Jobs embodied these ideals. He was known to be an a--hole by many but that didn't stop them from respecting, even loving what he accomplished. In the end, while he didn't suffer the ridicule Howard Roark did in Ayn Rand's novel, he did often take risks that nobody else would to achieve unparalleled leaps in innovation. His vision completely transformed popular culture, and probably the direction of world history, more than any other figure in our generation.

While those things were evident just in observing his life, this speech Jobs gave in 2005 was something I had never seen until last night and I suspect now that I have watched it I will never forget it. The message of his passing, and this speech is clear; do what you love, be who you are and never compromise. Like many others today I am moved by how simple a message this is and how profoundly it will affect my life going forward. Looking in the mirror will never be the same.

RIP Steve Jobs. October 5, 2011...