About…

I have been writing and taking pictures since I was no older than 12. It has been a very jagged path that has allowed me to discover an immense beauty in all things, “good or bad” that make up life.

I had a pretty challenging childhood that served me well in many ways. Emotional and physical struggles caused me to recluse, where I expressed myself through writing and photography. It was the perfect beginning for the person I have grown to appreciate as a Gratitudaholic - my favorite neologism that came to me while writing one day.

When I was 27 I attended my first (of what would become three) “Self-Discovery Workshop.” Five days at the Oregon Coast in Manzanita. We were a group of growth-seeking strangers that wanted to unroot the internal wounds that would allow us a new life.

On the day that we were tasked with choosing our most peaceful place in the world I recall feeling an absolute struggle. “Is there a place where I have ever felt this?”

It was the important first step of my first-ever, guided meditation. This visual would serve as the landscape to a life-transforming exchange. One where my first big breakthrough would be discovered - if only I could identify such a place.

What tasked me was remembering any place that felt safe and unencumbered by disruptive memories, never-mind the suggestion of blissful. “It can be a forest, stream or a place in your home. A mountain, meadow or maybe the ocean…”

In an instant, I saw myself on the pale grey sand of the Oregon coast, talking to the waves as if they were answers at my feet, something I secretly thought while vacationing there with my family. Until that exercise it hadn’t occurred to me how much I loved and missed the ocean, especially at that fluctuating crest that met my feet.

I could now see my authentic, happy smile as I saw it in my 2nd grade school photo. Before abuse, before bullying, before destructive sarcasm and ridicule, before the dangerous con artist, before marriage, before becoming the single parent of my seven-month-old.

Pure, knowing innocence stood before the adult I had become some 21 years later.

“…Now give your child a gift.”

With little effort, I gave past-life-me these words. “You will overcome all of the things that might come your way. Look at my smile and know that this is your future.”

“Now, your child is holding a gift for you … [LONG SILENCE] … Accept the gift…”

My child-self used two hands to offer me a familiar, Blue & Green plaid journal. Now 30 years later I can still feel that moment and what that gift still means to me.

Though not my first, that blank-book style journal was prefaced with a message to my future adult self. A message for me to always remember what it was like to be a growing, developing child when I became a parent. I knew I wanted kids but I wanted the challenges of my childhood to be my inverted guide on how to be a great parent one day. Basically, what not to do.

In an unprovoked fit of rage, (bi-polar, I would learn after her death) my former spouse expressed her jealousy of that journal, believing somehow that it held more importance for me than my marriage to her.

For me those pages contained profound and reflective insights about my observations on human behavior. For her it represented a life prior to her that had nothing to do with her. Despite never being a “Dear Diary” dialogue - it was really just cheap therapy, a safe place to express my curiosity and profound observations.

To prove how completely unwarranted her jealousy of that book was, I reacted by tearing it up in front of her. “They’re just words, not about you, just insights and observations that keep me sane as I try to process the things I don’t understand.”

Asked to journal about our experience, what came out was a poetic summary of my experience with these brave strangers in a poem I called “Blue & Green Plaid.” A title that obviously held even deeper meaning for me, while highlighting the many, piggybacking experiences I had with my new friends that week on the beach.

The gift I received from that 2nd-grader on the beach in 1992 still lives and grows within this fifty-something version of me. Like a surgical installment it told me that I still had all of those words, insights and desires thriving within me. It amplified my state in a profoundly memorable way.

I instantly able to see-feel-taste-hear and smell as if for the first time. Combined, these heightened gifts of humanity revealed a sixth, ineffable sense of Knowing. A profound and deepened level of empathy that completely changed the trajectory of my life. It made me aware that my two, most soul-enriching methods of expression were photography and writing, each of which never left the fabric of my being.

In 2020, while building what I refer to as his “Legacy Site”, a website to showcase his music career, 20 published books and to market his art, I realized I was giving him what I desired for myself. As I shared with him my background with merchandising and marketing (from 20 years in retail and 25+ years a studio photographer), I realized it wasn’t him I was directing. My service to him was a reminder to myself.

The message just continued to get louder in 2022 - “BUILD YOUR SITE, BRIAN!..”

I began to realize that my portrait business was much more than a “day job” to pay the bills until I could afford more time to write about and shoot my observations. It was actually the vehicle that allowed me greater content. My event, headshot and portrait services did more than put food on the table - it paid for the travel I desired and put me at VIP distance of the many thought-leaders I was studying.

I let go of “marketing shoulds” like constant social media posts and returned to my pre-internet, methods of client engagement, and used what worked in my greatest prior year on record. Focusing my heart-felt, undivided attention on every person who walked through my studio door with my simple mantra of service.

“Every person who walks through that door will receive more that what they believe they were coming for.”

Suddenly it was me that was receiving my “over-delivery.” I had a record year in 2021 with Q1 of 2022 exceeding that record by another 36%.

What surrounded me during COVID felt like a wave of uncertainty that I could not feel. Instead I mindfully gave more money and time to helping others. After years of studying “Working with The Law” by Raymond Holliwell, I was now living it.

My real wealth was increased in the four primary banks of my being, each compounded in value by the depth of my Gratitude. That’s not to say that everything is always good, rather because of the balance of “bad” I am better able to see what is “good.”

No black sky, no background to define the beautiful stars.

The Chinese philosophy of Yin & Yang, black and white respectively, are not contrast. They are balance. They are both necessary for us to learn, grow and thrive. When we develop the ability to appreciate the benefits of our difficulties we literally appreciate our way to the “Four Banks of Success.”

The bank of great relationships.

The bank of optimal health.

The bank of purpose-filled vocation.

and … yes … The bank where you keep your compounding currency.

So yeah, this is what I call an “About” page, because without you, there really is no me. Without the outline that is you, I could never pursue my passion as a professional observer.

Having a memorable, good or bad experience is never enough for me, I am driven to study, define and share it. Similarly, seeing the beauty that surrounds us on this planet is incomplete until I have put my four-corners-of-perspective around it and share it as a photograph.

Gratitude is what I am “ABOUT” and I plan to fill this site full of everything I “see” in order to help you experience it for yourself. May you find something on this site that provokes you to feel great inside, or adorn your walls with a scene to remind you that we are all quite fortunate to be “here.”

— Brian Geraths - Observer, Writer, Photographer … Gratitudaholic!