It has happened again - the breakneck pace of the months between September and December - where one moment I am neck deep in family photos, events, lifestyle portraits, and weddings and the next, plunged into 15 plus hours of night. We made it through the darkest, longest night, rallied through the pressures of the holidays, and here we are, in the year’s twilight, about to say goodbye.
Was 2025 a good year? Personally, yes, there was so much to be proud of, so many things to take wonder in, so many moments of gratitude, and awe, and beauty. It was a record year for my business and I’m absolutely blown away by that, I can’t believe sometimes the amount of support I have been given over the last several years, all the serendipitous occurrences, the intentional choices, the hard work, goal setting, loads of every kind of support, determination, and luck that have all coalesced to keep this good ship afloat.
Perhaps it is just my mom-heart, but there is also so much sorrow in the world, and it is hard not to feel it all around. So much worry, so much uncertainty, so many people suffering and being harmed senselessly. This duality is startling, it gives me pause. I am constantly asking myself if I have given enough, if I have been kind enough, if I have made any difference at all. Knowing the answers will take time, will come in retrospect. Something you may not know about me is that I am horribly impatient.
I have spent a lot of the last year thinking about time, how slippery it is, what it is, and how my work as a photographer deals with time in an incredible and unique way. One of my favorite professors in college called photography and film “mediums of visual absence.” Meaning, through this medium, we have a document of something that is now absent. Over and over I can return to the same place that I once took a photo, and no matter how hard I try to recreate it, it will somehow be different. That moment, the fraction of a second is no longer. It is both wonderful and terrible how time changes things.
Many people talk about goals and resolutions this time of year, some people love them, others hate them. I have long been a goal setter and a resolution breaker. I love looking at old notebooks full of lists of goals big and small and see that I have accomplished every single thing I set out to do. Sometimes it took much longer than I hoped, was a far more winding path, became a nonlinear, muddy process. Always, given some time, my list gets checked off. Sometimes I find a list that I completely forgot I made, and am delighted to see that I did everything on it, eventually.
So, here is a short list of things I promise I will do this year, and while some of these things seem silly and wildly attainable, it's good to be realistic, even in these most hopeful of days.
In 2026 I will…
Give myself time to rest
Make space in my life to plan, think, and dream
Slow down
Notice the subtle and not so subtle magical quality of the way light hits you when I am about to take a photo
Go outside even more, more, even more, even, even more.
Take my vitamin D. I promise.
Cheers to another year, I have plans on the horizon for so much photo fun this coming year, and I am so thankful for all the support my clients have given me over the years. Being a photographer is the best job in the world and I couldn’t do it without you.