What I believe.

City Story Photography | Alicia Sturdy www.b87.b5d.myftpupload.com

Inspiration. Mine never comes when I want it to. It comes in the most inconvenient moments where I'm not sitting at my computer, or with a pen in my hand.

It comes though. And to stop and recognize that inspiration is an ingredient of joy has been a big lesson in my life.

So many pieces have played together to become the inspiration for my new niche in my art.

If you read my post from Monday you know that shooting weddings led me to realize I didn't want to shoot wedding days, but deeply loved documenting the relationship and connection between the bride and groom outside the wedding day.

My chapter of life in Chicago and my two years living in quaint Middletown brought me to the place to recognize I am a city soul - I live breath and eat city living with all it's flaws.

The love and support I feel from my husband, and the love that radiates from the marriages in my life have led me to a place where I want to celebrate relationships just as they are. 

My fundamental need to document everything (I must have spent a mint on disposable cameras in high school) led me to photography.

My talkative nature (can you say excessive talking marked on my report card every year of my life) has led me to focus that energy into blogging and telling stories.

And all this poured together creates this twirling, beautiful thing that when I stepped back I saw what I had to do. That in my bones I am a creative, and this is what I am meant to create in this season.

To be an artist. To speak through photographs. To embrace those who love city. To celebrate connection & relationship.

Here in that lies my beliefs.

I believe in the spark first ignited by love.

I believe in fanning the flame of love can make it brighter and stronger.

I believe in preserving this journey to draw back on as these moments get farther from us.

There is always a spark at the beginning of any journey, and it creates something more than just a flash of light, it created a flame of fire. That when coaxed, becomes brighter than in those first few moments of inception. The the fan to this flame is remembering the journey. And that each moment shapes who we are, and to preserve this sacred moment in the journey is worthy of our attention. Is worthy to be captured in a way that creates more than just a pretty photograph on the wall, but to create a marker in the journey. To look back on in any time after now and be reminded of the love that existed in the beginning, the existed in that moment, and that exists even now.

I believe that the power of a city can shape who you are.

I believe in the magnetism of a city, and the energy and peace that it can give.

I believe in the story that that the city creates between two people

I believe this because I know it to be true. I know how a place can create a story line in your life that becomes part of who you are, not just where you live. How alive I feel with miles of sidewalk and buildings are around me soaring up and away. And that my mind clears amongst the honking horns and flurry of people in a way that no silence or stillness can. That this is my place of stillness. This is my place of peace. That this love affair with the city, is one of the greatest storylines in my life.

This. Is City Story.