I’m shooting my last destination wedding for the foreseeable future today. I’ll tell you why that is another time.

Recently I’ve been feeling very thoughtful and quite introspective.

I don’t know why but this week I was thinking about a time I was in Norway in late 2018.

I remember it so vividly, the feeling.

I had just shot a full day engagement shoot near Stavanger literally from sunrise to sunset. I was lying on my bed in the dark in my hotel room. I decided to keep the curtains open because the window was massive and the sky was starry. There was a street lamp right outside so the room was glowing orange. I had some kind of blues playlist on Spotify playing over a wonderboom speaker I’d brought with me. I remember it was the first time I heard ‘Feels like Rain’ by Buddy Guy, now one of my favourite songs.

And I just felt such a strong profound feeling of contentment with my life at that moment and gratitude that I’d found such a ridiculously cool job that afforded me these experiences.

I remember telling myself at the time that this might be a one off, even though it felt like my career was heading in cool directions… NineDots was flying, I was flying around the world – before Norway I’d been to the States for a wedding and road trip and would soon be heading to Morocco for a wedding, I was getting noticed by Sony since I’d switched from Canon, and I was speaking later that year at a conference in Spain.

Good times. The forward momentum was strong. But I never took these experiences or feelings for granted, thankfully.

So many things have changed in the world since then and those opportunities that seemed to come thick and fast in those days just don’t seem to present themselves to me with anything like the same regularity any more. I’m not the rising star (no I never won that award) jet setting photographer any more.

I can’t work out why those opportunities stopped coming my way. If I do I’ll let you know. Maybe my time will come again. Maybe that was my time. Maybe it’s genuinely a law of attraction thing – world travel just isn’t an urge of mine these days and the wanderlust has faded. Maybe that’s why.

I guess the message is just to never take it for granted when this job brings you to places of overwhelming gratitude and happiness.

Treat every opportunity as if it’s a one off.

Milk every experience.

Yes all weddings and bookings are a blessing whether they’re down the road or a plane ride away, but this is a job in which unique experiences happen.

Notice them, consciously, when they do.