The past few years I’ve been working to learn all I can about photography, to find my own style, my own voice, and, ultimately, to master my craft.

I know “mastery” is a vague and nebulous term; something we make up so we feel better about constantly bashing our heads against a wall in the name of passion. But for some of us, we enjoy banging our head against the wall; the long nights poring over our work, the early mornings trying to catch that perfect sunrise, the customers and fans we don’t really want to deal with but we’re grateful for them anyway. All of it an exhausting walk, on a path to a place that doesn’t exist, to achieve a goal we’ll never really attain.

I know I’ve quoted Burnt before but it’s worth repeating: “it was God who made apples and oysters, and you can’t improve on recipes like that… but it is our job to try.”

So when an old, college friend, Hope MacGregor, asked me if I’d shoot a music video for her new EP, I was intrigued. I’d never shot a music video before. In fact, my experience with video in general was limited to 15- to 20-second product spots for Instagram and Facebook.

Little backstory on how Hope and I know each other: in high school, my dad went to a national conference for electric co-op nerds— I mean, editors and journalists— and he was bragging about his son getting into [school redacted] to her dad who then had to brag about his daughter getting into [school redacted] and then they spent the whole rest of the conference talking about [school redacted] and then they made us take a picture together before our first day of school…

…and on the day we graduated.

Alright… we’re back in.

She sent me samples of a couple of her songs and I was blown away. In college, she’d always been in glee club or choir or just in her room singing to JoDee Messina or Faith Hill and she had a lovely voice and was clearly talented. But there was something different, something more soulful, in her voice and in the songs she had written.

Obviously, I agreed to shoot the video and picked my favorite song.

Her being on the East Coast and me being on the West (Best) Coast made things a little tricky in terms of logistics but her time off from law school and my time doing photoshoots in DC lined up perfectly. So the plan was made, the general concept was agreed upon, and the terror of doing something new started to set in.

The intrusive thoughts started in a few days later: “you know nothing about music videos,” “you’re going to single-handedly ruin her career,” “why did you agree to this, you’re just going to fuck it up,” “have you even heard a country song?” I made up so many excuses in my head to cancel the whole trip, to get out of trying new things, new styles, and, ultimately, to avoid any chance of disappointing myself or my clients.

Having ten shoots in as many days in DC helped distract me from my terror but then it was time to make the drive from DC to North Carolina. My mind raced through the different shots I wanted to get, the different angles to best capture the spirit of the song, and the best way to tell the story the song was telling.

After working my way through traffic— and a torrential downpour that reduced the speed limit to 35 MPH on the interstate— I finally made it. Her and I caught up a little, remembered a few stories from college, and talked a little about the differences between then and now.

Around dinner time, one of her friends/collaborators came over for a rehearsal session, which gave me a chance to relearn how to use my gimbal and the video settings on my camera.

Somehow, I got lucky and was able to capture one of the purest moments I’ve ever witnessed:

Obviously, things were off to a great start and I was feeling good about my familiarity with my gear. It looked like smooth sailing ahead.

And then my confidence quickly disappeared.

Hope didn’t want to shoot the song we had planned on because it didn’t fit with the rest of the EP.

“No biggie,” I said, secretly panicking in my head, “which song do you want to shoot?”

“Truth Teller makes the most sense,” she said, “it’s the name of the album and really encompasses the purpose of me doing this in the first place.”

“Cool,” I said, panicking less, “send me the song and I’ll tell you what I come up with.”

So I listened to it a few times… and then a few more times… and then once more. I didn’t know why (at the time), but in that time, in that place, the song connected with something in my brain.

To that point, I hadn’t known the details behind the songs, hadn’t known the reasons the songs punched in just the right spot.

But now I had an idea that was starting to stick.

I headed back inside and asked, “so that song, what made you write it?”

“Well,” she said, “how long do you have?”

“I have two and a half days.”

From there she proceeded to tell me some of the more… cringe-inducing details about her now ex-spouse.

And that’s when I realized why the song resonated so much with me: gaslighting, narcissistic ex-spouses and the need to say, “fuck you, I’m gonna do me.”

Once that realization set in, my creative brain went wild. I had a shot list, two or three different ways those shots could work to tell the story, angles to get the shots I wanted, how to make the chorus work with the video and vice versa, it was the most creatively productive I’d been at 11 PM.

After getting the shots we wanted, editing the final video together, and dotting all the i’s, we had a finished product. And now came the hardest part: waiting to see if what we had poured ourselves into was worth it.

It’s the part non-artists don’t realize about musicians, photographers, painters, or artists in general.

Art isn’t easy; good art is downright hard.

It’s hard to be vulnerable enough and honest enough to say something worth a damn. It’s hard finding something that resonates so much in your soul that you can’t help but say it out loud.

Great art makes a connection with people.

That connection, that validation that you’re not alone in the world, makes the path worth traveling.

Enjoy the video, keep your feet moving.

A special thank you to Ashten’s in Southern Pines, NC and Shady’s in Garner, NC for allowing us to shoot at your location. If you’re in the area, stop by and have yourself a beer.