Love Tree Photography is Back! | Fearless Conference

Well after living on the road for two weeks I finally made it back from the Fearless Conference in Arizona. Each year I try to push myself and my work to explore new boundaries and through the Fearless Photographers I have met a number of photographers over the years who have challenged me, mentored me, inspired me and motivated me to be my own personal best.

I attended Foundation Workshop a couple of years ago, which radically transformed my work and the way that I see the world, but I hadn’t attended the conference – this was my first. It was so lovely to see old colleagues and make new friends and be inspired by other photographers from around the world. What was perhaps the most inspiring of all was the fact that collectively we were able to donate $10,000 towards environmental efforts through the conference. Many thanks to our Fearless Founder Huy, who has been working diligently create big changes in both the photographic community and the world around him.

Because I decided to attend the conference very last minute, there weren’t really any rooms left at the hotel, and flights were expensive, so I decided to drive from Vancouver to Arizona with a friend instead. In a last minute change of plans  he decided to carry on across the USA, while I caught a flight home from Austin, Texas.

Traveling across America, living in a car for two weeks was a very interesting experience, and a much needed break from editing. Its funny that I have shot all summer long but haven’t shot much photographic work for myself. I think that’s a very critical thing many photographers forget to do, especially wedding photographers. Weddings can be so all consuming on vendors that they hardly have much energy left to explore their own creative outlets when the season is over, but I think it’s really important to keep skills up even over the winters when weddings slow down and to keep oneself inspired by finding a new perspective of the world around them.

Getting on the road and away from the city was really refreshing. I honestly forgot how many stars you can see when there is no light pollution. I slept in the desert of Nevada under the milky way and there were so many stars in the sky my mind could hardly comprehend it. Some of those stars are actually galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars and planets of their own. That flabbergasts me – the vastness of it all.

I was laying in the deserts of New Mexico outside of Carlsbad Caverns under a billion stars when I received a text message from a friend about the terrorist attacks in Paris. At that moment I wished all the lights in the whole world would go out for a moment and everyone would go outside and look up at the stars and see just how tiny we really are and how much we really need each other on this tiny, lonely planet. Getting out under the stars really put things in perspective for me.

I went to the Georgia O’Keeffe museum in New Mexico too. I stood in front of her paintings of brightly coloured abstract flowers and I swear I could feel the joy in which she felt in the world. I was moved to tears. How heartbreaking is it that some of us forget the true joy of being alive here and now! I think that’s why I find photography so important. Its not about creating something that hasn’t been created before. It’s about revealing the enigmatic beauty of what already exists. Of what is here, right now – that might have been missed had one not been looking for it.

Anyways I’m back now. Here are some images from the road:

Photo of Kendra Coupland at the Grand Canyon by Brandon Patitucci