Best of 2023 - My Favourite Images of the Year

Happy 2024! It’s a bit strange to say, as it feels like last year was 2019! I’m back at it with another round-up of my personal favourite images from 2023. I use this as my personal 'year in review' and incorporate a bit of my personal life. It’s hard to get a sense of the theme of each year, but I think 2023 was the year I finally got a sense of balance. Every year I go through the same pattern: a very busy summer with lots of weddings & sessions, followed by fall and early winter where I have to stay up until the early hours of the morning to meet deadlines. Then, when mid-winter and early spring come, I don’t feel busy enough, so I overbook my summers and create the same cycle over and over. Every year I would convince myself it would be different. After seven years as a full-time photographer, I can confidently say that I took a significant step toward that goal. While not a perfect setup, I can say that I didn’t have to stay up late to finish galleries on time, and I was able to go on more walks, take multiple weekend trips, and overall was less stressed. Multiple factors went into this but one of them is the use of “Imagen” which is an AI tool that learns from your editing style and “edits” your photos for you. It has in no way taken over my job as a photo editor, but it probably saves me a couple of hours per client which does add up! 

Continuing with the theme of balance, I also had a couple of personal goals which I took to heart. First, I wanted to read 24 books. This might not seem like a high aspiration to some of you, but reading has never come naturally to me, and ever since I picked up “The Love Hypothesis” by Ali Hazelwood to read on the beaches of Costa Rica in 2022, I’ve realized how much better my mind feels after reading rather than staring at a screen on Tiktok or Instagram. I’m super proud to say that I accomplished this target and even ended it with a doozy of a book: “The Count of Monte Cristo” which was written in the 1800s and has almost 1500 pages. (I’ll put a little plug that if you also love reading and want to connect on Goodreads, please reach out!) Second, which I didn’t quite meet, was I wanted to spend 1000 hours outside. Similar to my reading objective, I have noticed I feel much more emotionally regulated outdoors, and again I wanted to make an effort to be on my phone less. 1,000 may not sound like a lot, but when you break it down, it means spending an average of just over 2.5 hours outdoors every day, which in Vancouver can be difficult when it rains for 6 months of the year. Ultimately, I logged around 880 hours outside, and I consider it a win as my aspiration motivated me to spend more time outdoors. Lastly, I had a vague goal of finishing the landscaping of our backyard. I’ve grown to love everything involving plants, however, I did not love the process of taking an old stump that was directly in the way of a garden bed. I wish I could explain to you how annoying it is to do this, but instead, I’ll say a big thank you to my dad who helped Mitch and I accomplish this, even if it meant ruining a couple of his chains for his two chainsaws. Overall though, I would say we can put a “checkmark” beside this objective, and this year I will be recycling these goals and moving to tackle the front yard. 

As you might know, I’m a huge lover of travel, and 2023 will probably remembered as “the year we went to Southeast Asia”. I’ve been wanting to travel there for several years, and it was finally possible after Covid started to wind down. It was a bit of a whirlwind; we visited 4 countries (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Indonesia (Bali specifically)) in just 3 weeks, we were immersed in different cultures, ate a lot of delicious vegetarian food, and saw a lot of amazing beaches, mountains, temples, waterfalls, fish, caves, and more. I've shared many highlights of the trip on my two Instagram accounts. If you're curious about our experiences, feel free to explore my highlights and posts, living vicariously through us during that time. I know I have a couple of times in the last few months! However, I did want to highlight an update about one of the places we visited in Vietnam. In one of the Instagram highlights of Ha Long Bay, you'll see a snippet showing all the garbage floating in the ocean in that area—a rather disheartening sight. However, one of my good friends visited the area a couple of months later and reported that just after our trip there was a huge effort to clean up the area and it was successful! They collected 10 000 cubic meters of trash and are continuing to clean up the area so hopefully it will stay that way. Although it would have been nice to see that for myself, I’m glad that actual change has been created. 

Other than some fun trips, attending several friends’ weddings, and spending time with family, this has been a pretty chill year. No pregnancy announcements, big purchases or kids for Mitchel and me right now, but I was apparently in the top 1% of Taylor Swift listeners, so I think that counts for something right? Unfortunately, I didn’t get concert tickets, but I’m putting this out there; if you have some spare tickets to Vancouver or Toronto, talk to me ASAP! 

As is tradition, I enjoy compiling a few statistics to compare each year with the previous one. Overall, I was able to photograph 36 weddings & elopements and 22 other photo sessions. I left 0 of my lenses on a mountain because I shot 100% of my photos on just two lenses which were attached to me at all times (this is a reference to an old story from 2021 - yes I did leave a lens on a mountain one time, but yes I did get it back don’t worry). 5 of my images placed in international photo competitions (West Coast Wedding Awards, International Wedding Photography of the Year Awards, and Junebug Weddings). My laptop got an upgrade to an M2 Max, which ended up getting a screen replacement just 2 months into owning it (it was covered by warranty). Similar to last year, my work was heavily based in the Sea to Sky region (24 trips total), but I also photographed in Banff, Tofino, Washington State, Golden, Revelstoke, Victoria, Manning Park, & the Sunshine Coast. I took over 130,000 photos and delivered 24,000+ edited images. There were a lot of helicopter flight cancellations due to weather and wildfires, so I only went on 8 helicopter flights, but I did go on 6 gondola rides, 10 mountain top hikes for clients, and 5 off-roading adventures. 

Overall, none of this would have been possible without my amazing clients. Thank you to all of you who have brightened up my life and allowed me a brilliant life of witnessing love and beauty in my everyday life. You continually inspire and push me to new heights (often literally) and so this post is dedicated to celebrating you! Though this group of pictures will never fully describe all the beautiful memories that were made, hopefully, it will bring some joy into your day. Scroll on to see which photos I found to be my personal favourite!