Have you ever felt completely terrible about something, yet completely ecstatic at the same time? If you have, you know what an awkward experience it can be to have the two conflicting emotions battling themselves out in your head. That is how I felt several weekends ago, as I walked away from one of the best shoots I had had in a long time, all because of a mistake I made. Needless to say, the shoot didn’t go exactly how I had originally planned it to go, for better and for worse.
The day of the shoot, I picked up Haylie (who you’ve seen here from her dorm in downtown Boston and drove out to a gorgeous field on the western edge of Lexington. Because I needed a specific landscape for the image, I spent the weeks leading up to our shoot trying to find the perfect place. I had always loved a specific field I passed each day on the way to work, and so one evening I decided to explore the area on my way home. As I wandered through the meadow and into the small forest behind, I fell in love, deciding this would be the spot. Encountering only a young couple and a woman walking her two well-behaved dogs, I figured this would be the perfect spot to set the scene.
What I didn’t account for, however, was the difference between strolling in a quiet field after 5pm on a weekday, when most people have gone home for the day, and visiting this beautiful, dog-friendly (and notedly leash-free) meadow on a beautiful Autumnal fall Saturday afternoon. While the increased number of people was manageable, and not too bothersome, the increased number of dogs was disastrous.
Why?
Because Haylie is terrified of dogs.
And the worst part is, I even knew this before I decided to use this now less-than-perfect location. Needless to say, I felt like the world’s largest and most unobservant jerk as the shoot ended with Haylie making a panicked (albeit very graceful) run for the car while I finished up and met here there.
The only consolation to the tremendous cloud of guilt hanging over my head in the days following our shoot was the perfection of the images we were able to create before one of the dogs started chasing Haylie (yes, CHASING her! Seriously! I still feel like the worst. Person. EVER).
Despite all of this, the piece turned out so much better than I had ever envisioned it would. For this particular image, the penultimate in my Daughter of the Kings series (depicting the Young Women value of Choice and Accountability), I knew I wanted to show a moment of indecision as Haylie debated which of the crossroads to take. I didn’t know, however, how I was going to be able to capture the hesitation, when the only vision I could think up was of Haylie staring down two paths ahead of her, her back facing the camera.
I worried during the days and weeks leading up to this shoot about this. What if I spent the whole day out there and walked away with nothing I could use? I didn’t want her back turned to the camera, but I also wanted to very clearly see that there was a decision that needed to be made as she gazed out at her options. I need not have worried though. As a dancer, trained in the art of storytelling, Haylie, with two suitcases in her hand and a vintage hat on her head, told the story better than I could have ever planned as she twirled and glided through that small forest glade.
The two paths in The Way represent Choice. Originally I had intended to make one path lighter, the other darker, to symbolize the choice between good and evil we must make. However my experiences over the last few years have taught me that it is not always a choice between good and evil. Sometimes it is a choice between two equally good things. Whatever the case, the most important aspect of choice is how we make that decision and our accountability to the consequences of that choice, symbolized by the luggage in her hand. Do we do choose prayerfully? With hesitation and fear of what is down the road? Or with boldness and acceptance of what will come in the future?
[eltd_blockquote text=”For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do. -2 Nephi 32:5″ title_tag=”p” width=””]
Like the rest of the images in this series, light also plays an important part in this story. As 2 Nephi 32:5 says, by listening to that still small voice, or the light from above that illuminates our path, we can receive guidance on which direction we should choose. Of all the things I am most grateful to have learned as I have grown older, I am most comforted by the knowledge that we never have to make decisions alone. While it may sometimes seem like it is just one decision that will change the course of our lives, I am comforted that in many situations, it is instead the many small choices that ultimately lead us to where we are meant to be.
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