Every year I take some time over the holidays to sift through my photo folders and select the images that describe my year. Archiving is a practice that keeps us grounded. It allows us to remember where we’ve been, navigate where we are, and place new experiences. Sometimes it helps us discover something we missed in the moment, and sometimes it helps us move forward.
Ten years ago I bought my first camera. I grew up with it - photography gave me permission to quietly interpret the beauty and chaos around me. It helped me navigate the bewilderment of growing up and figuring out who I wanted to be. When I lived abroad, shooting images was how I learned to be alone or make myself at home in a new place. My camera opened doors to incredible relationships as I joined families, couples, and individuals to celebrate their most significant moments. Photography has also helped me come to terms with big sadness that came into life too early and grief I couldn’t understand any other way. My camera changed the way I see the world and in turn, my place in it.
This year I took fewer photographs than I usually do. A little over a year ago, I stopped active work on my photography business and started a job I love where I have a cube and spend an exorbitant amount of time on Slack. For the first year since high school, I didn’t photograph a single wedding.
Instead 2019 was a wonderful combination of wild new experiences and really ordinary life. I travelled over 70,000 miles across four continents, but also got to know my new backyard in San Francisco and shared my new home with old friends. I grew in a job I never could have imagined and worked with people that I admire. I started doing improv and I laughed a lot. I spent many hours on the phone as I learned how to be a better long-distance friend and daughter/sister. Photographs always speak from a particular context – between these images, there’s a whole lot of those invisible moments of growth with a community of people who stand beside me as I figure it all out.
I’ve been thinking about how important archiving is more than normal this season. My grandmother Sara (Mormor Svennson) passed away at 94 years old this weekend. Earlier this year, we discovered hundreds of old prints and negatives while cleaning out her home. It’s amazing to understand her world exactly as she saw it - from snapshots with her family in Sweden, to living in Detroit with my grandfather after they first immigrated, to life in Los Angeles as a new mother, to building a home and a family in Sacramento.
My cousin and I are in the process of scanning and sorting through Sara’s archive; a beautiful process of getting to know my grandmother all over again. I added a few of my favorites at the end, but hope to share more of her bright eye soon.
It goes without saying, I am who I am because of you all. 2019 was what it was because of my family near and far, the colleagues who inspire me, my improv team who kept me laughing, the new friends I’ve made around the world, the old friends who visited me in my new city, and the neighbors who make San Francisco home.
