Carlybish | Portraits

She’s the kind of girl I didn’t think twice about sharing a bed with in a city I had never been to, despite the fact that we had never met in person. The kind of girl I knew I would work well with and trusted to get the job done and then some. The kind of girl who would dance with me at a reception while we were shooting. The kind of girl who knew how to pick a good location and amazing light like nobody’s business. The kind of girl who NEEDED Starbucks before a wedding and only showered every other day…. JUST LIKE ME.

Carly and I have had an online friendship for about a year or so now, thanks to our mutual friend Amanda. (Amanda and I had English classes together at UT and worked the occasional shift together at Starbucks, and when Amanda moved to the Cleveland/Chattanooga area, she transferred to the Starbucks where Carly worked. So that’s yet another thing we have in common- a solid five years each we’ve given to Starbucks before photography became a full-time endeavor.) But, of course, as soon as Carly and her husband George moved from Tennessee back home to Seattle, Jamie and I moved from Salt Lake to Alabama… so yet again, we live on opposite sides of the country. So when I got an inquiry from Sarah about shooting her wedding in Portland, OR this past weekend, I immediately thought of Carly and shot her an email asking if she’d be interested in driving down from Seattle to shoot it with me. When she said she would, we began exchanging emails with lots of exclamation points and YAYYY’s. After a year of sending emails and blog comments and Facebook messages, it was about time we met face to face!

Let me tell you…. I don’t think we stopped talking ALL WEEKEND. I haven’t stayed up talking and laughing half the night with another girl since college, and I gotta say, it was nice! Being in this business can be really isolating. You spend day after day alone at home in front of the computer, with your only contact with the outside world being on social networks. And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but sometimes it’s just nice to be around other people to connect and commiserate and talk shop. Carly and I are facing a lot of the same struggles now that we’re doing this full-time and yet trying to rebuild our client base in completely new cities and markets… it’s tough, man. So when she got into Portland Friday afternoon, we soaked up the delicious grey-ness of the city and its Pacific Northwest ways, ate some lunch at the entire block of food trucks across the street from the hotel where we were staying [the most delicious $4.99 grilled cheese and tomato soup I've ever had in my LIFE!], and managed to squeeze in some shooting of each other before we were off to shoot Sarah and Orion’s rehearsal dinner [you can see her shots of me HERE]. I feel like I didn’t stop talking the entire time, so I’m surprised now that I even GOT anything, but I think these shots are pretty perfectly Carly. [p.s. she is EXACTLY how you would expect her to be in person based on all the pictures of her you see and the posts she writes. So awesome.] Plus, it’s always good for us photographers to be put in front of the camera every now and then… to remind us how awkward and uncomfortable it can feel for our clients, until we put them at ease and help them warm up to the camera.

Carly, you rock. Your style is fab, you’ve got amazing business instincts and people skills, and you’re the best pen-pal-turned-real-life-friend a girl could ask for. All you Pacific Northwesterners… check this girl out. She is seriously GOING places.

And stay tuned…. the wedding itself will be coming your way, and it was pretty awesome. :)