Perks and perils of being married to a photographer

Perhaps it’s not obvious, but my marriage to The Photographer involves occupational hazard. The occupation being hers. The hazard(s) being mine.

After all, one never knows when The Photographer will require of one a feat of athleticism, or daring. Lean out over there, hold up that, jump through those. Go sit by that angry peacock.

Or you might be hiking the coast of Kauai, say, when suddenly she indicates that it would be useful for you to stand across the way (she is pointing) on that promontory of crumbling lava above pounding surf. The waves, you observe, routinely shatter up and over said promontory.

“I’ll get soaked,” you say.

“You’ll dry,” says The Photographer.

So you go. Of course you go. You’ve long since learned that there are always three of you present: There’s you, there’s her, and there’s the camera. You’ve learned that sacrifices must be made. For art.

I’m not complaining. (Does it sound like it?) Because a little stage-managed derring-do is no price at all for access to something priceless: a new way of looking. Of noticing. Of seeing things and people and places and light – and out of them making compositions that wordlessly speak. The way The Photographer does. 

So yeah, sometimes you wait. And sometimes you get covered in ocean. Yet it excites you every time – because in the end, of course, you get pictures. Magnificent pictures. Like these.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Michael S. Hopkins, the photographer’s husband, walks out onto a promontory on the coastal Mahaulepu Heritage Trail on the island of Kauai, Hawaii.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

An endangered monk seal snoozes at Poipu Beach.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

A tree reaches toward the sky in Poipu, Kauai, Hawaii.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

A hibiscus flower at Waimea Canyon State Park delights the eye of the photographer.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Visitors at an overlook take in the view at Napali Coast State Wilderness Park.