Lost & Ambitious

2025 taught me something I didn’t know how to name at first: you can feel deeply lost and wildly ambitious at the same time.

This year didn’t arrive with loud accolades or sweeping milestones. Instead, it asked me to slow down, to sit in uncertainty, and to build something meaningful without always knowing exactly where it would lead. There were moments I questioned my direction, my pace, and even myself, but the ambition never left. It quietly carried me forward when clarity felt just out of reach.

Much of this year was poured into Room 902. What began as an idea slowly became walls, floors, long nights, delayed timelines, and countless decisions. Because of that focus, my photography year looked different. Fewer sessions, less noise, less visibility. For a while, I wrestled with what that meant, wondering if slowing down somehow meant falling behind.

What I came to understand is that I wasn’t stepping away from my career, I was expanding it. Room 902 is an extension of everything I believe in as an artist: experience over transaction, intention over volume, connection over convenience. Building it stretched me in ways photography never had, and while it was exhausting, it was also deeply affirming.

Even in a quieter season, there were moments that brought me back to the heart of why I do this. Traveling to USVI to photograph a wedding, barefoot shores, salt air, and a love story unfolding in real time was one of those reminders. It was grounding, familiar, and deeply clarifying to simply show up and tell a story the way I always have.

This year also carried a quieter kind of grief.

A former photography partner of mine passed away from cancer this year, leaving behind his wife and a baby on the way. We had merged businesses years ago, from 2016 to 2018, and later went our separate ways. Life moved on, and I had made peace with the idea that we would never speak again, knowing he was living a happy life elsewhere. Though we no longer shared a chapter, his absence landed heavier than I expected.

Even after all the images we made together, I realized how few photos exist of us in the same frame. His passing was a quiet reminder of how fragile time is, and how important it is to honor the chapters that shape us, even the complicated ones.

Despite everything, the work continued and in a season where I often questioned myself, there were gentle affirmations along the way. Being named among Senior Muse’s Top 50 to Follow and Senior Style Guide’s Top 100 Senior Photographers globally felt less like accolades and more like reassurance that the work still speaks, even when the path feels uncertain.

And as always, I am grateful.

To the clients who trusted me in a quieter year, to those who believed in a vision still taking shape, and to my husband who carried me through both uncertainty and ambition, thank you. Your support never goes unnoticed.

I’m stepping into the next year with more clarity, more confidence, a renewed sense of purpose, still ambitious, a little less lost, and deeply grateful for the road that led me here.

2025 wasn’t about checking boxes. It was about becoming.