category: personal photography – blog post written by alex

i recently lost a teacher, a mentor and a friend to cancer.  gerry meant something to me.  gerry passed away in his home just a few short weeks ago and i wanted to just share my thoughts about how i felt about him.  i know that our blog is usually about the weddings we shoot and a bit about our life as parents and business owners…  but our company name is lifeimages.  sometimes i feel like it might be ok to write about life.

as some of you may know, i actually never went to school for photography, i studied to be an animator.  but never set foot in a studio.

about a year ago, i was randomly thinking about who has influenced me along the way and gerry came to mind.  i decided to put myself up to the challenge of taking pictures of my teacher.  i approached him, he said sure. and so, as the sun came in the windows, i photographed gerry in his small and simple home.  he was a private man so i was honored to cross that boundry between teacher and student.  he let me into his life for a minute.  the photos that are at the end of this post are the result of that day.

if anyone knew gerry, you would know he was very enthusiastic about life drawing.  he would do life drawing all day and still have energy and insight at the end.  i remember breaking down one day and confiding in gerry saying “i am not talented enough”.  imagine telling a teacher that?  i still hear gerry in my head, talking over my shoulder about design and shape and other elements of a good drawing. i keep thinking about how much he inspired me to realize all these elements are in every day life, not just drawing.  light, texture, mass, color and shape.  he never took life for granted and i never looked at life the same.  even a ball was complex and how the light moved around it was inspiration to gerry.  he definately got you excited about the visual things of life.  he was very soft, but somehow everyone wanted to please him.  you wanted to make him proud.  he pushed so many people to better themselves.  he somehow manage to explain things just enough that they would finally just understand and they would seem to get better, almost over night.  it would just blow my mind.

i think there should be more people like gerry in this world.  he believed in what he was doing, i guess that’s what passion is.  to gerry it was more than a job or a career.  he was one of those people.  anyone that was around gerry loved him.

i think people who dedicate their life to their passion should be recognized.  these are people who think and dream and add a new flavor to art and life.  my lesson from this is take time to recognize the people that influence you – gerry’s gone but i had my opportunity to thank him and for that i feel blessed.

thank you gerry for being patient with me.  you will be missed.

here is the article about gerry in the the globe and mail.