Photographing Friends

Facebook has its pluses and minuses.  It can be used to re-establish old friendships, foster new ones, and keep in touch with family.  In this case, it was re-establishing a friendship from high school.  Kim and I were both cheerleaders.  She was on varsity, and I was on junior varsity.   It was our junior year of high school.  We didn’t really know one another before I became a cheerleader, but our friendship grew over our last two years of school.  We hung out all of the time after high school, and she helped me plan my wedding.  After I got married, we didn’t hang out as much.  I was learning how to be a wife.  When Kim moved to Iowa, we lost touch.  Via the magic that that is Facebook, we reconnected about five years ago.  In 2015, I decided that I wanted to visit Kim.  We decided upon a date, and I made my travel plans.   I was all set to go, but I lost my brother two weeks before the trip.  I had to postpone my visit.  

We did see one another a couple of years ago when she flew to the Phoenix area.  Kim flew into town to help a friend drive back to Denver.  I learned about this on Facebook, and asked her how long she would be in town.  I asked if it would be okay to come to her friend’s home, and she said “yes”.  I didn’t realize that her friend didn’t live north of Phoenix – about a 45-minute drive.  Nope, it turned out that she was about 90 minutes from Phoenix, but I didn’t care.  I hadn’t seen her in over 25 years!   We had such a good time together, and promised that we wouldn’t allow so much time to pass before we saw one another again.

Well, four years, and we still hadn’t planned to see one another.  In September of this year, I lost a childhood friend.  I was shaken.  Marcella and I met when we were 7 and 8.  She was my Aunt’s youngest sister, and we met when we spent a week with our grandmother.  My sister, Marcella, and I hit it off, and we were inseparable every summer.  Marcella and I both named our firstborn daughters Ashley.  We lost track of one another after she got married.  I’m not going to go into details, but I can count on one hand how often we saw one another over a 15-year period.

After losing Marcella, I was determined to visit Kimmy.  I didn’t want to live with a “woulda, coulda, shoulda” situation.  I contacted Kim, and asked if she would be available the first weekend of December.  She said “yes”.  I was excited.  I told her that I wanted to visit her in Denver.  We made plans for a weekend visit.  Kimmy was concerned about showing me the sites, and places for photo shoots. I told her that I was okay with simply hanging out.   I made all of my travel arrangements, and shared the information with Kimmy.

A couple of days before I my flight, I emailed Kimmy, and asked if she had a white shirt and blue jean jacket.  She said that she could get a white shirt.  I explained to her that we were going to do a photo shoot.  Kimmy has supported my photography since learning that I was a photographer.  I packed my black tutu and brought jewelry for the session in my luggage. 

We visited Union Station the evening of December 7, and knew that it would be the backdrop for our session.  We arrived late morning on December 8 in downtown Denver.  Our first location was the parking garage that where we parked the car.  The light was beautiful, and I love shooting in parking garages.  From there, we went across the street to Union Station to complete the session.  I am so happy that she trusted me, and I could not be happier with the images.