Doing my best to cope with absolutely frigid temperatures here in the Twin Cities. My car barely made it home because -4° weather zapped the Tesla battery. I pulled into my garage at 5%. I was at Qamaria till close tonight. It was a productive day and for the last six months I’ve been asking for a way to make a halal living. Walking away from pinup photography was terrifying without knowing where’d I’d land but it was an act of faith. Today I had a meeting with two creative, talented sisters about an Islamic fashion show we’ll be co-hosting in the Spring, then a logo and web design meeting with a client in the afternoon. A third meeting on a guest photography spot in the evening and the a call from the Qamaria owner to shoot the grand opening of the new location tomorrow evening. Finally, the blessings are coming after a lot of patience over the last year.
Tonight I was going to share some new photography from one of the recent gigs I was hired for. If you re-read a few of my recent posts, you’ll see that I’ve been shooting engagement proposals; weird niche, right? A guy approached me at Qamaria and said, “You’re a photographer, right?”. He was planning to proposal to his lady and wanted it documented, and ironically, his close friend was intending to do the same thing with respective partner. The timing was wild, but his friend also hired me. The first proposal you can read about in the blog I did called, “Cold heart!”. This one was indoors and much, much easier. With significantly less planning, it seemed to flawlessly fall in to place.
We met at a hotel in downtown and both his family and his bride-to-be’s family was already making preparations on the second floor. Without being constrained by freezing weather, the environment was relaxed. The groom-to-be even came down a couple of times and was able to communicate exactly when he and his girlfriend would be making it down the elevator. Like weddings, the pressure is always high with moments like this. If anything goes wrong; if you miss the shot or forget to hit record, you can basically refund the client immediately. Fortunately, I felt like I was on. I was able to capture the moment of the proposal and get some shots of the couple and family together afterwards.
This kind of work isn’t as glamorous as what I used to do but my heart wasn’t in it anymore and I’m showing a lot of gratitude for meaningful photography that is still giving me creative challenges to overcome. As soon as we wrapped with the family, he said, “We need to talk about a wedding now, brother.”, and that was a nice sentiment knowing that there will be more work to come. For the time being, I’m just keeping my head down and trying to pay these bills as best I can. Art, photography and videography are universal skillsets that can usually find you work regardless of location, communities and cultures so I’m gaining confidence I’ll be in good shape when I inevitable move abroad from the United States.
