Moving Ahead

Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.

                                                                ~John Lennon

If anyone had asked me a two months ago what my plans were I would have told them, work less, write more, hope to go diving more. If they had asked me again a month ago I would have told them, I have decided to invest in my daughter and her future. I still planned to work less, write more and go diving.

Note: See samples of Caits recent portrait photography at the bottom of this post.

Cait has loved photography since she was about 13 and her grandpa gave her a camera. She went on vacation and took some photos with the point and shoot APS camera he gave her. She came back with pictures that showed that she had a natural eye for a good photo. Those pictures are still displayed at her grandpa’s house, one of the New York skyline that includes the twin towers, the other of an amazing sunset outside the house of a relative in the Florida panhandle.

When I take pictures, it is just luck when I get a good one and to get that one good one I probably take about 100.Thank goodness for digital cameras. I can see a scene and think it would be a beautiful photo but can’t seem to capture it correctly; it never looks like what I hoped it would. Cait on the other hand can take a picture and it seems to be framed just right, have just the right elements in it.

In high school, she started more seriously thinking about photography as a career, she took a photo class and then went to the Academy of Art in San Francisco for college. Although she was still great at photography, she was not thrilled with the rest of what she was doing at AoA. She finally left after a semester.  She continued to take photographs, many of which I have had hanging in my house.

Cait moved to Nashville in 2007, and worked in both retail and office jobs to make a living. It isn’t always easy; the cost of living is certainly cheaper here than California but the pay is significantly lower as well. She still took photographs, beautiful ones and started to think about what she really wanted to do with her life.

A few months ago her circumstances changed and she had a chance to make a decision about what she would do next. She wanted to give photography as a career a serious try. We talked about what it would take to do so, could she or should she work at a part time job and do photography on the side, or should she  try and just make a business go? We agreed that the latter was a better option for now.

We had considered the idea of she, her boyfriend Kyle, and I all sharing a house together, to allow them to keep pursuing their creative endeavors and to allow me to have people I love around me more. We had not made any final decisions.

Then, as John Lennon said, life happened while I was busy making those other plans … the flood hit. It somewhat forced us to make decisions a bit quicker. Cait and a friend own the house I had been living in. It is currently uninhabitable.  When Cait moved out, I had moved in to help the two of them keep the house, as neither could afford it on their own. The housing market was still in its downturn and they could not sell for what they owed. My living there seemed like a viable solution, at least short term. Since the flood, they learned that they only qualified for loans from FEMA, and neither Cait nor her friend, my former housemate, could afford the house payment, a loan payment and rent for somewhere to live. They have decided they will have to give up the house. Maybe this is the part where you have to think; when one door closes, another one opens.

So, this is a part of my investment in Cait’s business. To allow her to continue to focus full time on her photography, allow Kyle to continue to focus more on his music and to allow me to focus on my writing. Cait, Kyle, and I have decided to share an apartment, although one bigger than the one bedroom they currently live in and have graciously allowed me to camp out in for now. It was that or have her mom be homeless.

So I’m working a little more than I had planned, part time at Home Depot and part time at the dive shop. The decision feels right; it feels like a good short-term sacrifice for me to in the end make all three of us more successful in our creative lives.

My investment is to support Cait financially while she makes her photography business, Caits Images, a success. And I have no doubt it will be. She has already done several photo shoots; portraits, family portraits, photo sessions of musicians (including of course Kyle), and kids. She has worked in both the Nashville area and in Southern Illinois/St. Louis area where Kyle’s family lives.

It is incredible to watch your little girl take on all the things that go with starting a business, put herself and her artwork out there for the world. She is in so many ways so much braver than I am. She has her moments of self-doubt but that is the other part of my investment in her business, trying to remind her how talented she is, keep her spirits up when it is tough to find new customers and build a portfolio and a reputation, and if it helps to talk through potential business decisions and plans.

She has hired a designer who is helping design a logo, she started her website/blog, she has started a relationship with several professional labs for printing, she is advertising, and she is studying the details of starting a small business and succeeding as a professional photographer. She is happier and healthier than I have seen her in a very long time. She works very hard for very little financial reward at this point but I’m certain that will change.

Take a few moments to visit Cait’s site, look at more of her pictures, she loves to get comments and feedback, and be sure to get in touch if you’re looking for a photographer. You can also check out Kyle’s music, here. And if you like what you hear you can download some of his music from iTunes.

Kyle and Cait  have also been collaborating some. Cait has taken photos to be used as album art for Kyle and the image below is a poster that the two of them designed and using photos Cait took of Kyle and Lisa Auge for an upcoming show in Nashville. If you live in the Nashville area, consider coming out and giving a listen.