We're Not Just an Instagram Couple
Farm Venues in Hudson Valley NY | Apollo Fields Wedding Photography | Husband and Wife Team | Small Business Owners
“We’re not just an Instagram couple,” I playfully declared to Heather while carrying a handful of dirty dishes to the sink. “If people knew that we really live this way all the time—I think they’d be sick,” I added. We were just putting the finishing touches on a delicious candlelit dinner of baked tofu in a spicy yellow coconut curry sauce, when Heather and I both realized that that declaration was just begging to be the beginning of a blog post.
What I meant in that moment was that it’s not just that we do “‘Gram-worthy” things all the time in our everyday lives, but that we do them because we really enjoy them rather than “doing them for the ‘Gram.” Thinking on this topic made me realize that Heather and I are motivated by connecting with each other and other people—that’s why we cook healthy, homemade meals with spices we can barely pronounce for people that we love—because that’s what makes us happy. Where most people see a moment to get some likes and promote themselves (and we’re not blind to the fact that we’re doing this also), we see a moment to express ourselves and connect with like-minded people.
Social media platforms like Instagram are the 21st century soapboxes for us to climb upon and speak our truths to the town (or more accurately, our local city, country and world). They are magnificent microphones of unlimited potential, but we all know that their feeds tend to hide the dirty dishes and legwork, tucking away the hours of unsexy tedium in favor of the curated moments of short-lived perfection. While it is important to celebrate the beautiful products of our hard work it is equally important to acknowledge the reality of success, that success is built upon aches and pains, empty cups of coffee, expletives, and endless amounts of frustration. To ignore that is to fail to tell the whole story of our success or truth.
Heather and I lean into the ugly side of our truths because we know that to ignore them is to live an incomplete life. Yes, we may not be as perfect or as “‘Grammable”, but because we are honest with ourselves we feel more whole as individuals, as a couple, and as a business. It allows us to connect with each other and connect with you. It is part of our brand because we are our brand, through and through. Apollo Fields is the whole meal: the rickety chair, the dirty dishes, the colorful plate and flickering candlelight; the stubbed toe, spilt red wine, and dabbed club soda; and as such our stomachs and hearts are always full to the brim. “We are not an Instagram couple” — we are an Apollo Fields couple and are damned proud of it.
As we enter 2020 may we give equal voice to our pains as we do to our peaks, embracing bravery in our weakness as much as humility in our strength. May we help each other do the dirty dishes while we polish off that last bottle of champagne. May we remember that success and failure are not mutually exclusive but rather are inextricably linked.
Cheers, friends, let us cry and create our truths together, Instagram and other social media be damned.
Photography: Apollo Fields
Destination Wedding Photography by Apollo Fields
Busy Season as a Destination Wedding Photographer | Behind The Lens With Apollo Fields | NYC and CO Wedding Photography
Busy season:
This is the feast to my mid-winter famine, when the sun is shining and I seem to wear nothing but little black dresses and yoga pants. It is the constant buzz of start-times and deadlines, the tick-tick-tick of my shutter as me and my camera search for that exact tear-jerker moment, and it is the click-clicking while I edit on cars, trains, and planes because there ain’t no rest for the wicked.
Busy season is when I feel most alive and maybe it’s just the coffee talking but there’s nothing I love more than being in the swirling energy of my couples, their vibrant wedding parties, and their nutty families. I am there for the chaos and the calm and I’m taking the same collective deep breath as everyone else right when the ceremony begins.
Oftentimes, I am right in the nucleus of it all. I am a stranger in sacred circles and I hope I never take that for granted. Few jobs allow such an outsider into their sanctuaries but the acceptance I feel as I stand under altars, mandaps, and chuppahs is a reminder that it is possible to put our differences aside without compromising who we are. Some of my favorite moments are when I am surrounded by practices that I do not understand, yet somehow the camera grants me permission to be included anyway.
I am there breathing in the same incense as you with the same tackiness of sandalwood in the back of my throat. I feel the heat of your fires and I have the same resonate hum in my core when2 the ceremonial gong is struck. I am right there to hear the crunch of the breaking glass when the wedding is made official. I may not always understand the language—but I always see the connection between humans as I am shooting.
My job is to find those generational bonds that keep us together and give you the photos that tell that greater narrative. Somehow you have made it this far and that story is worth telling. Busy season challenges me as an artist and a business owner, but how damn lucky am I to get to do this over and over again? The memory cards are filling up and we’re busy trekking around the country into cities and mountains and oceans and none of it is lost on me.
Thanks to everyone who helps to keep this crazy dream of mine alive,
Heather
Let Me Tell You About Womanhood
International Women’s Day | Let Me Tell You About Womanhood
Photo by: Eden Photography
Woman.
Let me tell you about womanhood.
Teeth chattering coming out of anesthesia, the first thing I thought out of surgery was where is my baby? The baby that had died inside of me and then almost killed me – I asked to see it and the look on the chaplain’s face suggested that this was not a normal request. She obliged. It came in a cloudy plastic container with a big sticker on it that had my name, a bar code, and some medical jargon on the side. Terrence and I held it up into the light – squinty eyed – wondering out loud what exactly was what. I was able to make out two beady black eyes and felt a sense of pride: my body made that. That is womanhood.
I spent the next week arguing with the state about getting that baby back to bury it the way I wanted. I weeded through death certificates, permits, I became a funeral director, and I didn’t get my way. I lost that battle and I wept out loud from the bottom of my belly at the county mortuary with at least a dozen strangers watching me. I had to walk away from it. That is womanhood.
And then in that same week, I shot two weddings. I showed up when I had every reason not to because I wantedto. In my most broken moments, I was still a photographer and an artist and knew that was where I needed to be. I could still wear all of the hats because that is womanhood.
But that is only part of what it means to be a woman. I’ve been a woman when I have been called a bitch, when I have been called bossy, when I’ve been too stubborn for my own good. But you know what, I own my business and I am the boss, I get to be bossy. And sometimes I am too stubborn. But sometimes I’m not. Sometimes I am just stubborn enough because stubborn gets shit done and I like to get shit done.
Being a woman is about primal strength. We have it in our bones, it’s in our DNA and no one can take that from us. We can move mountains, we can build careers, we can choose to make babies – we can choose not to make babies. We can love; oh we can love so hard that it becomes impermeable. We can feel, we can fight, we can lift each other up and we should. We are women.
Enjoy these photos of my fellow strong women.
Photography: Apollo Fields
A Fun Day in Brooklyn – Barrow's Intense Ginger & Strong Rope Brewery
Things To Do In Brooklyn | Apollo Fields Wedding Photography | Barrow’s Intense Ginger Liqueur | Strong Rope Brewery
Being a small business owner means a lot of long hours doing taxes, cleaning out your email inbox, fielding calls, filing receipts, and managing invoices. AKA, not taking just taking pretty pictures all day long (one can dream, right). I still wouldn’t trade it for anything, and days like today are reminders of exactly that!
Barrow’s Intense Ginger Liqueur
After a meeting with a venue in Glen Cove, we headed into Brooklyn. Our first stop was Barrow’s Intense Ginger Liqueur to meet up with my friend and owner, Josh Morton. I’ve always been a big fan of this product since I stumbled across it while bartending in NYC a few years ago. They have been growing their operation for the last six years and recently opened an awesome tasting room that can double as a dope event space with a designated studio for food photography.
It is no secret that I love supporting brands that have quirky beginnings and have found success by good old fashioned hard work and not taking shortcuts. Josh stumbled into this business after making his ginger liqueur out of his apartment building and giving it to friends as gifts. It obviously caught on because it is fresh and delicious, but also because as a spirit it works great in a lot of different cocktails but can also hold up on its own. A lot of hard work and smart decision making later, they are now in 40 different states and absolutely killing it, all while having fun.
Strong Rope Brewery
Afterwards, we headed over to Strong Rope Brewery to sample some beer and have a little work-date. We are able to do a lot of the business remotely, which means that we can totally set up shop at breweries (they are totally the new coffee shop, right?) Also, since moving back east, one of the things that we miss the most is the dank beer that was everywhere in Colorado so we’ve been on the hunt for places out here that not only have delicious brews but also have that chill, easygoing, doggo-and-kiddo friendly vibe.
We had a mini-blizzard this afternoon in New York, with snow and garbage flying in little dancing tornadoes along the streets. Between rush hour and the freak weather, we certainly didn’t want to drive back into Long Island right away, so it was the perfect excuse to hunker down in Brooklyn a little longer. The beer here is solid and the vibe is quiet and laid back.
The winters here are much different than in Colorado. The temps get bone-chilling cold, the kind of cold where it hurts your teeth to chew gum and you don’t want to open your eyes all the way. It’s unforgiving, but on the rare occasion, it will shut the whole city down which actually becomes quite romantic. Everything gets quiet, and the flurries will become illuminated by street lights and a sense of wonderment as you can walk in the middle of the streets without a taxi in sight.
Colorado winters are the opposite. They are something to be celebrated, where long-awaited retreats to the mountains are equal parts exercise and fun. The cold doesn’t even stick to your skin, much less your bones. The flurries melt before they become blackened ice mounds. I think eventually you take it for granted, but enduring the east cost oh-no-I’m-not-going-out-there cold months again is definitely a lesson working with what you got. In the meantime, we’re happy to hide away in craft breweries and tasting rooms while we answer emails and tie up loose ends from 2018.
