30/01/2026
Showing up is hard some days. I have tears and anger just behind my eyes every day. A friend mentioned ice, as in ice cubes, the other day and I felt a jolt of emotion through my heart. I come here to IG to learn, to be inspired, and to share. I have a business and I wear all the hats. One of them is promoting it, to keep the wheels turning. But I haven’t been showing up here much lately. The world feels so heavy.
I remind myself that my work matters. We all matter. Part of my passion for photography is honoring this moment. Celebrating it, immortalizing it. The good stuff. I always knew my role wasn’t war photojournalism. I didn’t want to be on the front lines of anything. I didn’t think the front lines would come so close. And I’m over here in France, not with my family in the Chicago suburbs. Not in Minnesota. But my friends are. My family are.
Here where I am, I still hold space for people in front of my camera. Right now that feels kind of radical, maybe even more important. Celebrating connections between family members, even in portraits of one person. I always say every portrait is a relationship. You have to choose the right photographer who you feel comfortable with. It doesn’t have to be me, but it has to be a conscious choice not based just on price or how many photos you get. It’s the human behind the camera that counts. You come to be seen, and share that rendering of who you are with the world, or just with yourself.
And today, I’m showing up here because I need to keep choosing presence. Grief and creation can live in the same breath.
