Yesterday was a day. Deanna and I were headed into town to go to a suit store appointment. On the way to that appointment, we were stopped on the highway because of a car that was caught on fire. When we passed it, there was nothing but the frame left. The flames were billowing and the smoke was racing to the sky as if it were being sucked up by a vent hood connected to the sky. Fortunately everyone was okay and we wish them the very best. But, definitely not something we expected on our journey.
Then, we Frogger through traffic until we get close to the parking garage. Unfortunately, the roads did not want any company because they were closed, sending us on a two mile detour just to be able to get to the neighboring road to enter the garage (you read that right). At this point, we are running late for my appointment. We finally make it into the parking garage and we find an open spot. As we are backing in, we hear a sound that was not received with a welcomed reception to our ears – the sound of metal grating against the vehicle. We got out and saw an unnecessarily large cage mounted on the wall enclosing a cooling fan. Besides us, the backup camera did not see it, and there was no lighting on the spot so it was an unfortunate meeting between our car and the cage.
We felt as unlucky as Charlie did when he opened his first Wonka Bar only to discover there was not a golden ticket. We finally make it, albeit late, to my suit appointment looking as frazzled as Ms. Frizzle (thank you for my childhood, ma’am – always wanted to get a ride on that magic school bus). We checked in and we were met by our genuinely amazing stylist, to which we dumped the morning’s events on them. These emojis appropriately account for their sequential reactions: 😥😮🫠☹️🤯😧🥴🤑
Deanna, being her amazing self, put a hand on me (she didn’t slap me, calm down) and said it is going to be okay to which, after everything that happened, that moment grounded me and let me focus on the blessing that was about to happen for us: finding my custom wedding tuxedo. That’s right, this journey was to go design the most important outfit that I would ever wear. The outfit that I will wear, in just a couple of months from writing this, when I say “I Do“.
What started out as a trying journey for us turned into several emotional moments for Deanna and I in this suit store as we took great joy in co-designing my tuxedo. As I tried on the sample suit for the stylist to take measurements, I looked at myself in the mirror, then looked over to Deanna smiling. I turn to glance at her to which she tells me she’s getting the “misties” (our term for our eyes starting to turn into oceans). Of course, my eyes started turning into an ocean. It was a beautiful reminder that I am lucky as [insert your borderline profane, passionate word of choice] to marry my best friend. That life and health-willing, I get to spend this life with my best friend.
A break from the love story to say we finished with the appointment, headed to a lovely lunch and we’re walking back to the car saying this tuxedo will now carry quite the story as we look at it: a car on fire, the two mile detour being .1 mile from our garage, our vehicle being scratched, and I’m sure something else. We both love to look at life through a lens of a sense of humor – it makes it fun and lighter.
Speaking of light, we get home, Ollie, our dog is passionately protesting that he has had no outside time today, so as tired as we are, we agree with him to take him out to the park on one condition: we get to bring our camera and our new flash. We made it to the park, we let him run to his heart’s content, and eventually, the golden hour baked some beautiful light over us. We grabbed the flash, and after over thirty attempts, we started to get the hang of the flash and Deanna captured the picture at the top of this post which has me grinning and getting excited every time I see it. This was just in our second week of using the camera. Ollie also wanted to show you another picture that she took of him a few days prior.
Several days prior to “a few days prior”, I was talking to Deanna about getting a camera. Two weeks later, we had it. Deanna has some photography experience, I have a little, so naturally we chose to pick a pro-line camera that was beyond our depth. We both love a challenge, so that wasn’t going to stop us. And, we didn’t want to be limited by technology – only our skills, which we constantly are learning and having fun practicing to fill that gap; recognizing that we will always be learning.
I knew I wanted to create this website to serve as a memory capsule for our pictures and progress. But what really motivated our mission was when Deanna suggested, while traveling or out and about, finding people or animals experiencing a beautiful moment and offering to take their picture. She knew that a picture was more than just a picture; it is a frozen-in-time memory that would otherwise not be saved, except to our brains, which if you are like me, you have ADHD and those memories are fleeting. The beautiful part is that Deanna said we will not charge for those captured memories. Our reward is the joy we hope people (and animals) will experience when we share their moments that matter.
So, there it is – my incredibly verbose way of sharing the origins of R & D Photography and more importantly, a ViewFinder glimpse of my best friend and future bride, Deanna. We hope that you will continue to join us as our skills and shutter count increase.
I want to give a special thanks to several people. In this post, I will highlight Richard Hazel of R.T.G.H. Photography and Chuck Robinson. These gentlemen are two incredibly talented photographers that we both respect and they have each provided us mentorship into our photography journey. Rich is an incredible aviation and portrait photographer (who took our engagement shots!) and Chuck is a remarkably talented landscape and fellow dog portrait capturer. Both of these talented individuals have provided mentorship in helping us creatively and colorfully capture moments that matter. Enjoy their inspiring work by clicking their names above.
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