I’m ready to put my head down and begin the slog that 2022 promises to be.

From a photography perspective, 2021 was my most “successful” year to date: I had the ridiculous luck to photograph for the Austin Bold USL Championship soccer team, for the Austin Gilgronis professional rugby team, for the Jamaican Football Federation, for the Circuit of the Americas, for Amazon, for awesome non-profits like TreeFolks, Performa Dance, for Take the Bridge, and for wonderful families. I got to make music videos and art assets for my wonderful friend, Naytronix, and with my crazy-talented friend, Alexa Capareda.

But, to start off the new year, living as a contract photographer with kids is scary!

On one hand, I can look back at my trajectory over the past several years and think “things will work out. Look what I’ve already accomplished and the relationships that I’ve built”. On the other, past performance is not a guarantee of future successes and my previous contacts may not want to work with me, they may not have the budget, people may have moved-onto new organizations, or organizations could have shut-down completely. It’s all so precarious and stressful without the guarantee of future work and income.

With all that said, I’m hopeful: Vaccines and booster shots are effective, the world is (kinda) opening up, events are returning (to a degree), the Austin-area is growing and has more-and-more arriving by the week, I’m continuing to build onto relationships that have been established over years, and I’m learning new things all the time.

So, here’s to the future. Here’s to old and new relationships. Here’s to showing gratitude for past successes and past lessons learned. And, here’s to uncertainty.