In just a few days I’ll be heading to Paris for The Signature Atelier and I couldn’t be more excited. It’s a workshop for photographers in need of inspiration, a new perspective and a reassessment of their signature style. I looked for over a year for a workshop. I can feel myself losing my mojo in the face of popular, popular, popular. The same wedding on every blog, the same Pinterest photo recreation over and over, the same photo of a business owner sitting at a cafe with a laptop and coffee and perfect hair and makeup. The same. It all feels so uncreative, ungenuine and unmotivating.

I’ve been needing something. A redo, a jumpstart, a swift kick in the bedonkadonk. I feel like I’m all over the place, spread thin. I’ve been trying to balance what is “me” with what’s popular in the hopes the type of clients I have a real heart for will notice me. But what I’ve been getting is short lived success and some little victorious highs, followed by long soul draining lows. One incident in particular happened last fall.

I was in a major rut. Frustrated, I found myself questioning everything. You see, I’m the type of person who craves substance. Stories, histories, the why behind things, fires me up, pushes my creativity. Photographing a high budget, fancy wedding full of pretty and no meaning is my nightmare. I’d much rather photograph a bare bones VFW wedding that has thoughtful details, meaningful moments, true joy. I wanted couples who were less focused on their checkbook and the social pressure/competition to have a better venue than their friends or a bigger cake than their sister, and MORE FOCUSED ON being who they are and on their marriage. But all I could see was the former, everywhere…and then this thing happened.

I used to wonder how things go viral and now I know. Late last year I submitted a wedding to Popsugar for publication. The wedding had taken place the previous fall, but in the rush of the impending holiday season I missed submitting it. I knew there was a good chance Popsugar would approve the submission because the wedding had a Disney theme, which is popular with their readers. Within days the submission was accepted and published. I was happy to see the wedding posted where I knew other couples would find it inspiring.

A few hours later I was showing my husband the post and noticed it had already been shared over 300 times. I was surprised but didn’t think much else of it. Popsugar has a lot of loyal readers so I took it as a sign my fellow Disnerds were enjoying the post. That same night, I went to check my email and I saw I had been contacted by Disney Style. Now you guys that know my Disney obsession know I totally lost my cool. They had seen the wedding on Popsugar and wanted to know if they could share it too! Hard core fangirling ensued! #DreamsComeTrue

The next morning I was greeted to three more inquiries about the wedding. Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan and Country Living wanted to know if they could share it. This was crazy to me, but I honestly thought it would all stop soon. I was so wrong! By the end of the day I’d had ten more inquiries from various news outlets and blogs. The next day which I refer to as Popsugar+2 I had about 15 more emails. By Popsugar+3 the wedding had been posted about 30 times and my mom even texted to let me know there was a story about it on their local Detroit evening news! Whaaaattt?!?!

That still wasn’t even the end of it! On popsugar+4 I had completely lost track. My husband jumped on his computer and did some magical ninja search stuff and found 50 websites had posted it. It had been posted in over a dozen countries. I got an email from Queensland Brides an Australian wedding magazine asking if they could publish photos from the wedding in their print magazine! It seemed that for every time it got posted, I got another email.

After about ten days it calmed down. At that point I was able to process some things that needed processing.

Now, I just want it to be known that I am not delusional. I know this wedding going viral had absolutely nothing to do with my photography skills and everything to do with my client’s vision and creativity. Their wedding theme went viral, not my wedding photography. But, I still had to mentally process the fact that one of my favorite things on earth, Disney, coupled with one of my other favorite things on earth, photography, came together in a way that got people amped! I literally had a moment where I thought…I should just plan and photograph Disney themed events for the rest of my eternity. I wasn’t the only one to have this thought either. I definitely got text messages from friends, and family contemplating the same idea.

It was an interesting experience not so much because my work was inadvertently in the spotlight, but because it made me think about where I was and where I wanted to go in terms of photography and my business. In medical circles you’ll often hear people say you’ve got to treat the disease, not the symptoms. My feeling that I should just photograph Disney events was a symptom of me feeling like I needed to be doing something more “me”. In those few days I realized I don’t really care if any photo I take ever goes “viral” again. Viral doesn’t really mean anything other than flavor of the week, or minute. What I really care about, is that I’m photographing people and places that mean something to me, that excite me, that exude joy, adventure and love. I also realized, that spending a single second on anything that didn’t get me closer to meeting and creating for those people, was a complete waste of my time, talent and resources.

That’s a lot of epiphany over a wedding feature, but it got me moving. Three months after the wedding went viral, registration for The Signature Atelier went live and I booked my seat. It’s time for a reinvention and I can’t wait to see what Paris has in store for me!