For nearly twenty years I've kept a sort of diaristic practice of photography. Some years I am more engaged than others, some years have sort of slipped away from me entirely. Up until 2015 - and then starting again in the middle of last year - a lot of these pictures were made on film. As arbitrary as it may seem, I tended to have an easier time thinking about my pictures as “personal” when made on film, as opposed to “work” made on digital.

Since last year, I have been slowly working to bring some coherence to this pile of photographs. The photographs of the people and places I love will ultimately hold more meaning for me than just about anything else I will be lucky enough interpret with a camera. I always knew this, but somehow it used to feel like a liability to admit that publicly, like it wasn't serious work, like a picture editor would see it and decide that a picture of a family member isn't a real picture because it’s not made under awkward assignment conditions (there is truth to this, by the way). But this concern just doesn’t register anymore. It's not that I don't care how my pictures read, it's that I am more grounded in what they represent and what my priorities are, for better or worse.

I am still not done sorting through my pictures for 2025 (or even 2016 for that matter), but I wanted to share a few. These aren't necessarily my best or favorite pictures from last year (though some of them may end up that way.) If there’s something that is reinforced for me going back, it is that being out in nature, in gardens, in orchards, in the woods, on hikes, on a lake, or even on snowy dirt roads, with family, with friends, with cousins are some of the times I feel most compelled to preserve.

More later, perhaps.