YEAR IN REVIEW: 2019

{Originally published January 14, 2020}

The annual tradition continues! By the end of each year, I often feel like I’m skittering to the finish with the smoke of the last twelve months flying behind me. Sitting down to pull together these retrospectives is helpful, so I can remember what exactly happened in the space of one year, look at the changes, and see how the work actually formed.

When I sit down to write a first draft, the piece is golden in my mind’s eye, and the glow always makes me hesitant to begin, because I know I can only rarely live up to it. Ann Morrow Lindbergh writes about “disciplining an idea into form”, and that is the best way to describe the process. You sit down, and work, work, work, gaze into space a little, then dig in some more, until the project has some sense of order. Its shape is revealed by the work. By the last draft, you think. “Of course that’s how it is, it couldn’t really be any other way.” That’s how years are for me. I start with a rough idea for how it might turn out and reality - discovered by living out days and weeks and months - is wildly different, but looking back I cannot see how it would take any other shape. “Whate’er my God ordains is right” says an old hymn, and after another year of seeing his ways be better than mine, I can wholeheartedly agree.

The year was so (happily) jam-packed with a mix of work, travel, and family happenings that I don’t feel I have enough distance yet to be able to objectively say what happened in 2019, the specifics of internal shifts that happened. I do know I’m starting 2020 feeling less restless/fitful/fretful, even with more question marks hanging in the air, and that I am thankful for whatever happened to cause that growth.

I’ll be dividing the post into categories that mirror the ones of my site - People, Love + Marriage, and Reportage, with a little extra section called In-Betweens for small slices of life outside profession.

(Also: did I steal and alter that middle paragraph from my Instagram? Yes, yes I did.)

PEOPLE

Starting with an experimental session, so I could learn to not be afraid of my flash and use it in a purposeful way. We did this shoot on the last cold day of March, and created some of my favorite images of the year.

A shoot with my very favorite French horn player on the planet, providing a chance to shoot portraits with a different professional purpose in mind.

Behind-the-scenes photo via my brother, Jake.

A senior shoot with my little sister who is somehow old enough to be a senior??

I don’t do a lot of family portraits, but I snuck in a couple this year with some families I’ve known since their inception - it’s always fun to walk into a home and see photos I took over the last 5-10 years framed on the wall!

These little guys and their sister have grown my heart at least five times, and then melted it.

Got the opportunity to continue work with Sweet Tea Shakespeare throughout the year, kicking things off with Sweeney Todd performed in a pie shop.

#selfies, taken as I went about the year. Also known as visual proof that I exist, and did a few things and went a few places this year.

In two author’s stomping grounds: here, Margaret Mitchell’s apartment in Atlanta. To the right, in a clubhouse out back of Eudora Welty’s lifelong home in Jackson, Mississippi.

Took a bio new photo for launching a new endeavor: Long Way Around! If you have somehow avoided the myriad announcements, it’s a longform project about Blackbeard and corruption and how we get our histories and why we tell stories.

LOVE + MARRIAGE

Starting with love, because I know the majority of you are going to skip ahead to pretty wedding photos anyways. ;)

One of my dearest friends got engaged, and we spent the better part of her engagement session in a cow pasture. I would expect nothing less.

Got to be a part of this sweet proposal, which led to my first wedding of the year.

You know the easiest way to get the flower girl’s hair messed up? Instruct the ring-bearers to not touch her hair bow.

Photographed James + Maria’s big day at the Amazing Graze events barn - what a fun spot to celebrate!

And finished off the autumn with Sarah and Zach’s day, celebrated with their nearest and dearest - no blog post for this one because I’m woefully behind!

REPORTAGE

The NC state archives is full of papery treasure and people who love paper - naturally it’s now one of my favorite spots.

A Civil War club arranges itself for a portrait (much to my relief, they’re not a heritage group - just a bunch of history geeks!).

Spent a morning with the Neuse River Model Railroad Club, learning all the ins and outs of of making those perfect little town in miniature, plus all things tangentially train-related.

I had never set foot in Dog-Eared Books before this cold morning, but I became a believer. Raleigh-ites, make the trek out there on Friday-Sunday - all books are $1, and sometimes River the sweetest three-legged dog is also there.

My hair poofed up to three times its natural size thanks to the greenhouse environs of Catherine Merriman and her orchids.

I got to watch the fascinating tintype process in Riley MacLean’s studio.

In May, I spent an afternoon with legendary photographer Burk Uzzle. Still processing that, to be honest. Also wrote an article about his career and ongoing mission for The Bitter Southerner, a publication that was on my ‘moonshot’ list at the beginning of the year.

A personal project, I attended the watch mayoral election party of George 4 Raleigh

I went into the Emerald Isle BP for a bottle of Coke, and came out knowing that every morning a group of older gentlemen sit at the “Tables of Wisdom” in the front corner of the store. Naturally, this led to another self-assignment (blog post coming soon!).

And, to finish off the year, the lovely folks at Bonehenge let me hang around to document a day in the life of cetacean skeleton re-articulation. I held a whale vertebrae, sniffed whale and dolphin oil, heard the story of the workshop, and wrote about it for Atlas Obscura.

IN-BETWEENS

Photographs that I snapped along the way, in between jobs and assignments. 2019 was an out-of-the-ordinary travel year for me, so I have a few less photos of the light in my office, and a few more of light in places far from my home. Some photographed with ye good olde iPhone, because life is too short for me to haul my big camera absolutely everywhere.

In the mountains of West Virginia.

Another year, another visit to the Sylvan Heights Bird Park.

My friend Kami found out that I’m gathering blue china, and brought me several gems from a garage sale - and as a cherry on top, they all involved events from American history!

Introducing my nephews to the splendors of dinosaurs in museums.

Lost in the Met // Van Gogh’s self portrait

Ferry views.

Fourth of July, and my grandmother adorably imitates the Statue of Liberty (In the background, my nephew Alex had to be physically restrained because his first instinct was to run towards fire. Gracious.).

Atlanta sights.

My sister and I spent a night at the Ridgeway Opry House, and it was a Christmas-light-and-Hank-Williams-filled delight.

It’s always five o’clock in New Orleans.

My mother about to clobber everyone in Bananagrams. As per usual.

I wish our family had some facial expressions. ;) Taken during the Dohm Family Thanksgiving Pool Tournament, which my brother and mom won by some miracle.

We’ll finish our time with one of the most peaceful mornings close to home. If I ever leave North Carolina for a meaningful amount of time, I’m going to miss our scrappy little farmhouses with tin roofs.

That’s all for now, folks! To everyone in the last year who has trusted me as a channel for their story, thank you a million times over.