07/21/2025
𝟏𝟎 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐖𝐃𝐏 🖤🤍
Eleven years ago I was living in San Diego, California. I had recently left my corporate career in finance and moved across the country to a city I had never been, after drawing it out of a hat with four other random places. I left Ohio with everything I owned in the back of my car—a camera was not one of those items.
Before I left the east coast I bought a $400 Nikon Cool-Pix off of a street vendor in New York City for the cross country trip. Little did I know at the time, it would change the entire trajectory of my life and career.
This was one of the biggest turning points in my life to date. It was in CA that I realized what I was meant to be doing in the next phase of my life. Before that camera I had no known talents to speak of outside of the creative energy I carried and a way with words.
Ten years ago, this month, I went all in with photography and purchased my first professional camera. I had no idea how to use it, I had no idea what I wanted to shoot (I swore I’d never photograph people 🤣), but I knew it was how I would make a living for the foreseeable future.
A few photography workshops in Los Angeles and New York later, the most beautiful and inspiring learning time in my life, I fell completely in love with the craft.
Photography has gifted me with some of my dearest friends, now family, took me across the country to cities that have become second homes, and given me the opportunity to meet and photograph some of the most incredible people with stories that will inspire me for the rest of my life.
I told myself I would give this endeavor ten years. Ten years of consistent, hard work. Ten years of learning and climbing. Ten years of my full devotion and love, and “see where it went.”
To say this all worked out well, is an understatement. This path changed my entire life, and it’s something I’ll always do, offer to those I love and those who have supported me in some form or the other.
Life has recently thrown me an extraordinary opportunity. One I’ve worked towards for much longer than ten years—for most of my life in fact, since I was a child—one I would be remiss not to reach back out and grab.
Much like ten years ago, I’m at the beginning of a new chapter, and in true Whitney fashion, my claws are firmly gripped around what I’ve built in WDP. Life is about change, and my biggest opportunity for growth is learning to let go—of the past, of the people, places, and things I’ve loved and to make room for the new. I don’t know right now what the future holds, but I promise to always be transparent in my journey.
Last, but certainly not least, I’m well aware that a thank you could never be enough. Even still, I do thank you. For investing in my craft, trusting my process, sharing my work, and allowing me to grow through my experiences and conversations with all of you.
A decade later here we are. And I am a better person because of my time with you.
Thank you. 🖤
For the best ten years of my life so far.
Cheers to new seasons and new beginnings.
And cheers to TEN years.
We did it.
X-
Whitney
Whitney Danielle Photography
www.whitneydaniellephotography.com
Pictured: my very first self-portrait. 🙏
San Diego, California
