2022 was… a year… not my favorite, but better than the year prior. To look towards the positive, I experienced a lot of growth. I tried new things, got out of my comfort zone and worked towards prioritizing ME. That meant more solo road trips, ocean time, attempting more selfies, reading more, social media-ing less, and far more volunteering than ever. Fun fact: I also rode nine chairlifts for various portraits and events this year – a great reminder of why I love living and working in Vermont! 

 

The highlight of my year was achieving my photography career best in both state and international photo competition. I earned enough merits to receive my Masters Degree through Professional Photographers of America and surprised myself with a Diamond Award at PPA’s International Photo Competition – the second Vermonter to ever achieve this, and the first Vermont woman. Fist bump!

The biggest change for Letter10 Creative was that after over 15 years of photographing weddings, I am no longer accepting weddings through Letter10 Creative, but am instead working for friends. I’ve loved the freedom and pace: work really hard on the day, being creative, and sharing in others joy without everything else that goes with it (emails, momzillas, editing into the wee hours of the morning, etc…) I was a videographer, photographer and assistant for 13 weddings. I am honestly really looking forward to more in the coming year.

In March I became President of Vermont Professional Photographers. It’s honestly a lot of work, but fulfilling in that I am giving back to my photographer community. Another volunteer effort I started was becoming a photographer for NILMDTS – something that is very much out of my comfort zone, but rewarding to know I’m providing the only professional photographs of angel babies that their family will ever have. I also volunteered as Marketing Manager for RockFire, my 11th year!

I had far more graphic design, marketing and branding work in 2022. I created layouts for four “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. I worked with Millstone Hill to revamp their brand, marketing and website, complete with my photographs. I’ve loved the process so much I have agreed to be their marketing manager in 2023 and will work on their social media efforts. 

It has inspired me to focus the business to offer more brand services, giving businesses varying levels of marketing support: from photographs and design, to branding and social media, offering custom packages that not only provide the tools for success but also teaches the client best practices in using them. 

I’m not a gal who tends to make New Years resolutions, but I typically find an inspirational word as a roadmap of sorts. In 2020 it was “grace” – and let’s be honest, my life needed it so much that it was my word for 2021 AND 2022. Well this year feels a bit more transformative so I’m thinking “cultivate” may be my inspirational word. I’m putting it out in the universe to hold myself accountable: I hope to improve myself through mindfulness and life long learning, step out of my comfort zone even more, and to help others. 

Doing the stupid-Facebook-scroll, I stumbled across this quote that really spoke to me:

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something. So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”― Neil Gaiman

If you’ve made it this far in my blog post, thanks. I hope in the coming year we are able to “cultivate” together.