2021: The Best and Worst Year Yet

As I look forward to the new year, I feel excitement and zero regrets for the best and worst year of my life so far. While I typically wouldn’t go into very personal details about myself, this year I feel it makes sense to because it’s affected my work so monumentally. 2021 has been a mega year for me; I grew and birthed my little girl Lola, bought a house with my partner Mark (and subsequently moved house with a 10 week old baby), I’ve experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows of my life so far as I’ve entered into motherhood and my physical strength has been extremely compromised because of this.

After battling morning sickness which induced so much motion sickness that I couldn’t even look at the ocean, my wee bump began to cause me chronic rib pain which lasted the length of my pregnancy. My camera became very hard to hold around 24 weeks of pregnancy - and that was just the body with the 16-55mm attached. Energy levels depleted and all I craved was sleep and rest; waking for sunrises, especially in the ocean, became too challenging as the urge to rest and nurture my little one reigned supreme. And as the instinct to protect my precious little soul blossomed, the fear heightened and nothing was worth putting her at risk. Needless to say hiking to see sunset over Aoraki, shooting a sunrise surf in the ocean and the super blood moon lunar eclipse was a very big deal. But the most precious soul came into my life and for this I would give up a years’ worth of creating in a heartbeat. Not because the passion doesn’t burn fiercely, but because nothing can compare to a mother’s love.

I wasn’t going to even create this post but I figured I would stand up to my insecurities and be proud of what I HAVE achieved in 2021; embracing the abundance mindset rather than sinking into the lacking mindset. When looking at this body of work, I see a collection of images that has allowed me to push outside of my comfort zone and stay safely within it all at the same time. I see quality over quantity. I see a reflection of life slowing down and creating what I truly couldn’t bear not to create. I’ve experimented with self portraits, travelled far from the ocean to explore mountains and continued to push skills creating in the ocean and documenting lunar details. The magic of nature continues to unfold, no matter what shit we have going on in our lives. That said, here are the best bits which not even pregnancy could stop me from frothing for. Enjoy!