Best of 2020 | My Favourite Photos of the Year
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.– Mary Oliver
What can I say about this year that hasn’t already been said? How can I encapsulate the grief and fear and uncertainty?
Let me speak to the hope. Let me speak to the joy of sloughing off expectations, of digging into the depths of ourselves in the months of isolation and austerity. “Meanwhile the world goes on.” This year, for me, certainly saw fewer shoots and weddings. But what I did have the honor of photographing was teeming with delight and an appreciation for the present.
So many of you had to change plans that were months or years in the making. Thank you for trusting me to be there with you through it.
So many of you invited me into your story when it was scary enough to be around others. Thank you for trusting me to safely do so.
There may be fewer photos here than the last few years; there may be less in the way of far-off destinations and epic travels. But 2020 was not less than. Thank you for showing yourselves to me, for loving whom and what you love and allowing me to document that. I wouldn’t have gotten through this year without it.
I hope to see more of you in 2021 🤎