2018 A Year In Review: Part 1

2018 A Year In Review

Part One

Wow I cannot believe 2018 has already come and gone. I think in so many ways it’s been my hardest and best year yet. We moved last Fall(2017) to North Carolina and with that brought a lot of hope but also a lot of resistance on my part. Mostly because I really loved our time in Kansas City and I was finally feeling healthy and ready to move into growing up my business. But life has other plans and I accepted that challenge of basically restarting again.

It was a very long and hard start of the year. Trying to connect, balance, restart and really just energize myself. In a lot of ways I felt like I really failed, I could only really put energy into my business and that felt pretty pointless at times. You see starting fresh with people, attempting to get your work in front of your community and also being full time, working from home and by yourself are hard shit. :P

I remember so many days of waking up and feeling like I had nothing on the calendar and no one to complain to. My husband was in school full time getting a very draining masters degree and working at a big IT company, while still being awesome and loving. (He still is in school at-least until May) So it felt like a lot of “patience” was needed. Which coincidentally was my word last year :P I needed so badly to be patient with myself, my business, the community and to also stay committed to my vision as an artist and business owner.

I was looking back on my post last year and saw I had created three goals for the year. Life doesn’t really work in goals for me, I’m realizing :P I can put tangible numbers down and I can put passions and intentions into existence but all of them are big and take SO much time! ie. I need Patience

So my first goal was getting healthy and guess what, I was not very brave this year. A lot of my health issues have really been about me being a little too cowardly to seek out healing and change for my body and life. I woke up most days excited to change and lot of a days already defeated. As if I was a in pit with no ladder or rope and I had been screaming for help for weeks. If you’ve ever watched that one James Franco movie where he cuts his arm off, that’s how I feel and yet I have yet to cut my arm off and get help and its been a few years :P Again I am starting this year with hope for change and hope for a healthier life. I’ve already booked an appointment (well Chris booked it ) for getting a more natural path for my health since more western health things have really not been in my favor. But I also know there is a chance I’ll fail again.

My second resolution was to love myself better and that literally moves in inches. ie “patience”

I know I’m only sounding hopeless BUT I do think if nothing else my third resolution has over and above been met. I wanted to change the people I worked with for photography, only work with those who really got the art I was creating. And oh my gosh, I have met some of the most incredible people and stayed connected to the people who have always gotten the art I was creating! I got to do double the in home sessions. Only emotion filled, laidback and connected photography which has been my passion and goal for SO long!

I also wanted to shoot more births… and if you’ve been following along at all, it’s now my number one thing! I hit my goal of double and then surpassed it. And I feel overwhelmingly excited to have photographed so many powerful women and celebratory birth days. From hospital births, to home and birth center births, to fast births to slowwww births! But seriously each one told such an inspirational story. I was completely honored to be there to capture each one. I only photographed 1 wedding in the end and it was for the best couple in the whole world! I really feel so thankful for the photography year I’ve had. I want to keep growing, expanding and learning.

This collection of images are my favorites(atleast part one of my favorites), they are full of the raw and powerful quality I want my work to express. There is nudity and there is blood in some of my work, yes, but I think there is so much power and beauty in our bodies and I just couldn’t censor my favorites. All photos have been approved and released by the client because my people just get the work I’m creating :)

I’ll be posting hopefully this next week my part 2 with a few probably unachievable goals and of course the word for 2019 (which I’ve yet to decide on:P)