2022 was a landmark year for Andrew Morrell Photography. If the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 were me creating a pit at the bottom of a trampoline, 2022 was the equal and opposite moment of flying high above the elasticity of the canvas. 60 weddings photographed, 3 WPJA Artistic Guild awards, the WeddingWire Couple’s Choice award, and this flattering article in the official magazine of the PPA (professional photographers of america).

“I don’t have a playbook. I deliberately go to weddings with as little information as i can… i take improvisation very seriously.”

from the article written by Amanda Arnold

17 Years of Hard Work

I started my business in the summer of 2006, after I left a 20 year long career working for NPR and NPR stations across the country. I’ve lost count of how many weddings I photographed, but my estimate is over 700. There were, and still are, days that I wondered if anyone aside from my truly amazing clients noticed the work I was creating.

So when I received an email from Jane Gaboury, Director of Publications of Professional Photographer, the official journal of the Professional Photographers of America, asking if i was interested in having my work featured, my Imposter Syndrome warned me to laugh it off as a hoax.

I suffer from lifelong, chronic if you will, severe depression. I live my life inside a dark box, with randomly placed windows that, when open, bring in just a hint of hope, in the form of diffuse light. Sometimes that light is a fog, sometimes it is sharp and crisp. I manage this box with meds, as I have since the 1990’s. And as you probably imagined, I am a very serious introvert.

So what on earth made me think that I could make a career switch from a world of hidden view – radio – to a world where I would have to interact with 200 strangers at a time?

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It turns out that I am full of energy, human generosity and joy when I am protected by my cameras, and am affirmed by the couple, friends and family to capture their day. It’s a side of me I never knew i possessed, and as my career began to see success, I found my work persona blossom and take me to places I’d never imagined i could go. As the article author Amanda Arnold so perfectly wrote:

“No one was more surprised that Andrew Morrell would enjoy photographing a wedding than Andrew Morrell.”

Amanda Arnold

Now, here at the beginning of 2023, with 17 years of work behind me, I am eager to see what the future brings.

Thanks for reading!