This is part 8 in the "Where did we come from" series. I hope you are enjoying reading about our history and where we came from.
So here I was living in paradise. I had moved into a small apartment with Scott. Scott had gone to the photography school that I had gone to, but he had started just after I had graduated. We had met a few times both at school and at another studio where he had worked after graduation. Our apartment was close to the beach and within walking distance of the village. At the time I moved to St. Simons it was still a pretty small laid back little island so you could do a lot down in the village area. The best thing about the early years at St. Simons was that when Labor day came and went all of the tourist went too, leaving the island very quiet.
Our first apartment was interesting to say the least. It had one air-conditioner and when you tried to use it the fuse would blow. We kept our windows open all of the time and had fans to help keep us cool. For the small amount of time we were actually in the apartment it worked pretty good.
I was working for Sea Island Photography on Sea Island just off of St. Simons. My schedule was to work from nine in the morning till two in the afternoon and come back and work at night from a little after six till ten thirty at night. What I did was shoot on the beach and around the hotel during the day and in the hotel lobby at night. Mixed in that schedule were family portraits, convention work, weddings and golf tournaments. During the morning and early afternoon hours I mostly photographed children, honeymooners, families and people playing tennis. At night we dressed up and photographed the guest as they came to dinner till eight thirty. We then went to the lab and processed all of the film and printed everything we had photographed during the day and at night. After printing everything we went to the hotel and posted the pictures on the wall for the hotel guests to order, and this had to be done by ten thirty every night. After ten thirty we would be pretty uptight from the rush of getting the prints out so we would go to Brogen’s and meet up with friends every night to wind down.
So here I was living in paradise, only working all of the time, but loving it. And one day I got up and realized that I was still working in a darkroom, photographing weddings and children all of the time. It was the greatest job in the world. Had I grown up?