What Could Come Next?

Sep 28

NAPERVILLE - WHEATON - GLEN ELLYN - ELMHURST - GENEVA - ST. CHARLES - BARRINGTON - BARTLETT PHOTOGRAPHER

Happy Sunday my friend!

This week felt like a really lovely mix of work, friendship, and family.

At the studio, the ongoing rain meant my senior sessions had to be rescheduled, but I did photograph the most beautiful couples session in the studio, and the light was just so good. You know those sessions where everything seems to come together exactly the way you pictured it? This was one of those, and I cannot wait for them to see their images. I also photographed a young doctor who recently finished her residency (what an accomplishment!) and had a couple of studio viewings for future intimate weddings and a baby shower.

One of our favorite little rituals is our weekly—and sometimes twice-weekly—walk to the neighborhood farm just a block away. We load up with carrots and apples for the horses and usually make the trip with Dan, Ellis, Nancy, Easton, my dad, and me. It’s such a simple thing, but both my dad and the little ones look so forward to visiting the horses. I have a feeling these ordinary little walks are the things we’ll remember most.

And then came Friday night and a Mimi, Papa & Ellis sleepover party. He is at such a fun age right now, and honestly, this whole Mimi chapter is even better than I could have imagined. Our grandsons have added such a sweet new layer to our lives.

And speaking of grandsons, our littlest guy, Easton, started crawling this week—and apparently has places to be because there is no stopping him now.

Work I love, horses, sleepovers, and crawling babies.

Not a bad week at all.

Some BTS from last week.

Soft Focus: What could come next?

I saw something about Ina Garten this week that I haven't been able to stop thinking about.

Her first cookbook, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, was published in 1999, when she was 51 years old.

Now, to be fair, Ina hadn't exactly been sitting around waiting for her life to begin. She had spent nearly two decades building the Barefoot Contessa specialty food store in the Hamptons. She had already created something incredibly successful.

But at 51, she did something different.

She wrote a cookbook.

It became a bestseller.

A few years later, Food Network came calling. She wasn't sure she wanted to do television and initially agreed to just 13 episodes.

We all know how that turned out.

Cookbooks became television. Television became more television. There were columns and appearances and eventually a memoir. And just this week, Ina Garten, now 78, launched something she's never done before—a video podcast called Happy Hour with Ina Garten.

Seventy-eight years old.

And still trying something new.

I love that.

Maybe because the older I get, the less interested I am in the idea that we're supposed to eventually arrive at some finished version of ourselves.

I certainly haven't.

I came to photography later than many people I knew. I didn't go to college knowing exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't graduate with a photography degree and a five-year plan.

I started somewhere around 28 or 29 or 30—for heaven's sake, I don't even remember exactly anymore.

And it was slow.

Really slow.

I built my business one client at a time, mostly through word of mouth. For years I wondered whether I was actually good enough to call myself a photographer. Imposter syndrome and I were very well acquainted.

Then, around 2010, something changed.

I wanted more.

I wanted a studio. I wanted a brick-and-mortar space. I wanted people who didn't already know me—or know someone I had photographed—to see my work.

It scared me.

I did it anyway.

And that one decision changed the trajectory of my business.

What I didn't know then was that it wouldn't be the last time I would want more.

Not more in the sense of bigger or better.

Just...more of myself.

A couple of years ago, I felt another little tug.

Fine art.

I wanted to make photographs that didn't belong to anyone but me. No client waiting for them. No deadlines. No family Christmas card. I wanted to make something simply because I needed to make it.

So once again, I became a beginner.

I started creating the work. Then I started submitting it to competitions and open calls. I applied to galleries. I entered exhibitions. I applied for an artist residency.

And things started happening.

Not because I suddenly knew what I was doing.

I just kept doing it.

And lately, I've felt that tug again.

I'm writing.

This newsletter, which began as one thing, has become something I genuinely look forward to every week. I've started thinking about a book. There are other ideas quietly taking shape in my head that I'm not quite ready to talk about yet.

And here's what's different this time.

I'm not asking myself whether I can do them.

I think when I was younger, I needed so much reassurance. I needed to know something would work before I was willing to risk failing at it.

I don't need that anymore.

I've lived long enough to know that most of the things I'm proudest of didn't happen because I was especially brave or especially talented or because somebody handed me an opportunity at exactly the right moment.

They happened because I worked at them.

Sometimes for years. Sometimes decades.

I showed up. I learned. I made mistakes. I changed directions. I tried again.

And eventually, little by little, things happened.

Maybe that's one of the gifts of getting older that we don't talk about enough.

You have evidence.

Evidence that you've survived the things that didn't work.

Evidence that you can learn things you don't know.

Evidence that being a beginner isn't nearly as frightening as you once thought it was.

And evidence that a dream doesn't have an expiration date.

But I think there's another gift in continuing to dream, too.

It gives you something to look forward to.

There is something wonderfully exciting about having an idea in your head that hasn't happened yet. A goal you're working toward. Something you're learning. A trip on the calendar. A project that keeps you awake because your mind won't stop thinking about it.

I don't think we ever outgrow the need for anticipation.

In fact, maybe we need it even more as we get older.

I love my life as it is right now. I'm incredibly grateful for it. But being grateful for the life you have doesn't mean you stop being curious about the life that's still ahead of you.

There should always be something out there that makes you think, I can't wait.

I don't want to spend the rest of my life protecting everything I've already built.

And I certainly don't want to spend it being afraid that something I try might fail.

It might.

But here's something I've learned after all these years of running a business and trying new things: people aren't standing on the sidelines waiting for you to fail. Most of the time, they're not judging you at all. And the ones who are paying attention? More often than not, they're simply excited that you were brave enough to try.

I think we spend far more time worrying about what people will think if something doesn't work than anyone else spends thinking about us.

And what a waste that would be—to let the fear of something not working keep us from finding out what might.

I love my photography business. I have no intention of walking away from it. I still love photographing my clients, and I hope I am doing it for many years to come.

But loving one thing doesn't mean there isn't room to love another.

Photography can sit beside fine art.

Fine art can sit beside writing.

Writing might someday sit beside a book.

And who knows what might sit beside that.

Maybe that's what I loved so much about Ina's story.

She didn't have to stop being the woman who cooked.

She just kept discovering new places to bring her with her.

A store.

A cookbook.

A television show.

A memoir.

And now, at 78, a microphone, video camera and another first day.

There is something incredibly hopeful about that.

We hear so much about slowing down as we get older.

And maybe we do.

Maybe some things deserve to be slower.

But slowing down doesn't have to mean becoming smaller.

I think I am more curious about what's ahead of me now than I have ever been.

There are things I still want to make.

Places I still want to go.

Things I want to write.

Ideas I want to try.

Things that haven't even occurred to me yet.

And I love knowing there are still first days ahead of me.

Instead of wondering whether I've missed my chance, I've begun wondering something entirely different.