At the time, I was slammed with work doing several architectural shoots in different towns as well as a bunch of portrait shoots for different clients. Basically, I was shooting, downloading photos, backing them up and running to the next shoot. Jeff was my final one and I was pretty psyched to finish it up. After a morning of catching up on office work, I hopped in the car and made the 2 hour drive over to Monticello. Once I got 20 miles out of town, I finally took a deep breath and relaxed! It was time to plug in the iPod and just enjoy the drive.
When I arrived, Jeff was cleaning up his saddle shop. He invited me in and instead of breaking out the camera and shooting photos right away, we just talked. We talked for a good hour about saddle making, cowboys, life, family, the weather and a host of other things. Then, after we literally ran out of things to talk about, I suggested that we break out the camera and shoot some photos. It was a bit tricky because there was a delectable blend of fluorescent, tungsten and very cold daylight coming in the windows. But, Jeff was at ease and we were very comfortable with each other shooting, so it went smooth.
It was so refreshing to sit down and learn about my subject on a personal level. It then dawned on me that I am very fortunate to have the job I do. It is a conduit to experience places and people that I would not have otherwise ever considered or ever learned about. I was paid to learn about a beautiful craft that I'm never exposed to in my daily life. And then on top of that, I got to blend my craft with his to show off his work. Pretty cool!
Once we wrapped up, I got back in my car and made the 2 hour journey back to Durango. Tunes a crankin, feeling rejuvenated, I immediately started planning my next projects and preparing for countless hours on the computer processing all the photos I had created in the last few weeks.
