2023 Year in Review
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2023, wow.
What a beautiful and soul-fulfilling year and also a very challenging one.
For me, it was a year of some of my most profound creativity, relationship-building, and a year of dreams coming true.
It was also a year filled with many tears, sleepless nights, money woes, loss, frustration, and heartbreak.
But in the end, I'm left with deep gratitude for all I experienced last year and great pride in all that I accomplished. I'm looking forward to all the magick that 2024 will hold.
The year started with a bang as I traveled to Mexico to capture a dream retreat with Sarah Oleson. I've photographed several retreats with her over the last few years and each one is better than the last. Her Mexico retreat was no exception - a one-of-a-kind location requiring a 45-minute boat ride to get there. The property and villas are stunning, the staff is incredible, and Sarah always creates a moving and unforgettable experience with each retreat.
February came, and I finally got to shoot in a studio I'd been dreaming about shooting in - the NBPT Studio. Kismet, of course, I booked two separate sessions in this studio in the same month and absolutely fell in love with the space. The images from both sessions are some of my favorites, and the thought and attention to detail that has gone into every inch of the NBPT Studio is fully felt.
As Spring came, house-hunting became more of a priority, which ate up more and more of my time and bandwidth. I worked on some super unique and creative branding shoots with new and repeat clients (one of which involved skateboards and duck costumes, yes, you read that right). I was truly starting to feel my creative fire reignite in a way it hadn't in quite some time.
I captured one of my favorite, dreamiest Initiation Ceremony sessions to date (I still look at the images and get in my feelings at least once a week over what we created together in that ceremony).
The end of Spring transitioned into Summer at what felt like lightning speed as I captured back-to-back-to-back retreats for dream clients from Maine to Arizona and back to Maine again. I'll have to do another post about those experiences because each retreat was deeply life-changing for me in many ways. Each one left a profound imprint on me personally and impacted how I plan to run my business in 2024 and beyond.
Between retreats, I was either hard at work editing like a madwoman or working with clients all over New England on some absolutely incredible brand magick sessions.
Fall arrived, we found our dream home, and along with it came all of the paperwork, phone calls, and appointments that were part of buying a home. As soon as the paperwork was signed, I headed off for more back-to-back-to-back bucket-list retreats in Maine, Peru, and back to Maine again.
I would have been exhausted, but frankly, I had no time to stop and think about how tired I should be. I kept myself busy with editing, prepping to move, and eventually moving and settling into our new home while still attempting to catch up on editing or capturing new sessions in between.
Less than a week after we moved into our home, I flew to Florida for a series of dream shoots (noticing a theme this year?), a mix of brand and retreat, photo and video. Three shoots over three days left me feeling so lit up creatively that it felt a bit sad knowing I was soon heading into slow season.
I ended the year with the most witchy, lavish brand session that still gives me chills whenever I think about it. Oh, and a surprise trip to Paris for my 36th birthday from my mom (more on that another time 😉).
All in all, this year was full.
This year felt like one giant reminder of the ever-present theme of making my dreams come true. Nearly every single client, every single retreat, and every single video project all felt like dream clients. Many of the clients I worked with were clients I put on my vision board at the beginning of the year with the intention and desire to work with them. And I did it!
I created some of my favorite work this year. I got to work on more video projects and I created so much work that I am beyond deeply proud of.
2023 was such a fruitful year, and it felt like the roots of so many seeds planted over the years were finally taking hold.
I'm looking forward to growing those roots and foundations even stronger in 2024 and seeing what magick we create together this year.
Thank you, as always, for the gift of your presence, friend.
