Best of 2025 - My Favourite Images
Welcome to my round-up of 2025; where I blab a bit of random things that happened in my personal life, and share some of my favourite images from my work life! It’s all about balance you know ;)
2025; what a year! In a technical sense, it was similar to the last couple of years. We travelled, I photographed many awesome people, and things felt overall fairly stable. But in fact, a lot changed because in June, we found out I’m pregnant! Very exciting of course, but getting through the busy summer season in the first trimester was no small feat. In my opinion, the first trimester is by far the hardest, and I know people talk about the third trimester in the summer being hard but nausea and heat do not go together well. I’m so so grateful for my client’s grace and understanding during this time. I learned quickly what worked and what didn’t, as the first Jeep adventure elopement of the summer had me puking out the side of the car in front of the couple and Jeep driver, much to my great embarrassment. Thankfully, that was a one time thing as I learned how to manage it as best I could. Plus, Mitch accompanied me on several hiking elopements, carrying my equipment and driving up the Sea to Sky highway so that I could rest whenever possible. We had a saying that I would repeat to myself as there were many days that I would ask myself, “how will I get through today?” to which the answer would be “you will because you have to.” Am I being dramatic? Maybe, but it didn’t feel like it at the time. However, the body is amazing and most of the time adrenaline seemed to kick in when a wedding day would start; I honestly did have a great time in those moments!
Of course, I love travel so there were some other highlights at the beginning of the year. We were able to travel to Fiji in April and what a treat that was! I love adventure, beautiful places, sun in the colder months, and the show Survivor, so Fiji ticked all those boxes! I cannot brag about that place enough! The trip really put our problem-solving skills to the test as we ended up shifting most of our hotel stays and the ferry rides over one day so we could still go on the Survivor-snorkelling trip that had to be rescheduled due to bad weather. We also managed to fit in a trip to the UK in May and June where we explored England & Wales with my parents. A busy spring? Most definitely but there was a strong urge to get that travel bug out of my system before we started a family, and I have no regrets. It was more of a nature-focused trip and we saw so many gorgeous places from the mountains of Wales to the beaches of Cornwall which somehow looked like the waters of the Caribbean! Plus I was thrilled to see several filming places for productions such as Harry Potter and Bridgerton. A small shout-out to anyone who drives regularly in the UK; you all deserve some flowers because those roads are SO narrow! If you want to see a more detailed and visual overview of our trips, you can find them in my story highlights on Instagram.
This year has been a bit of a blur, but here are some other things of note:
Back in February 2025, we got a second cat so Watson could have a friend; we named him Otis! He’s a grey tabby and has quite the personality. Very sweet but also a bit hyperactive in that he LOVES to play and will do so for hours if you give him the opportunity. It was a huge transition to introduce the two cats, and I felt quite discouraged at times in those first 2 months, but now they are the best of friends. We love them so much and feel they have been a small stepping stone in the life of having a child.
This feels so far away now because it happened a year ago, but it was still part of 2025; we “added” (or rather stole) a room to our place. What does that mean? Well, we drilled through our bedroom closet, put in a doorway, and sealed the current doorway off from the previous entrance of the other unit. So far this year, the space has been where the cats’ litter boxes have been, but it’s now transforming into a nursery of sorts. It’s a small space but it works well for this stage.
I was again heavily invested in our yard and planted a bunch of new things in the spring, which I was very excited about…only to get a heavy aversion to the smell of it in the summer (especially the petunias and garlic). Barely anything got harvested out of our tiny vegetable garden because I couldn’t stand to even look at it! It was the strangest thing. Thankfully I did manage to keep almost everything alive and forced myself & Mitch to do the minimum amount of watering. Once fall came around, I started to feel better and planted over 200 bulbs in the front yard, so I’m excited to see the results of that in a couple of months.
I turned 30! It doesn’t really change anything, but I’m grateful to feel satisfied with what I’ve been able to do in my life so far and I’m ready for the next stage!
I will use this opportunity to brag about my husband, who managed to pull off hiking the West Coast Trail in June with his childhood besties. They had a blast, but from what I hear it’s still a lot of type-2 fun.
We found out we are having a girl! This shocked us because Mitch is part of a family of all boys and both of his brothers have boys, so I thought for sure we would carry on the trend. We are so excited, but we still have yet to pick out a name. The time is ticking as she’s due at the end of February!
I entered the gingerbread competition again, but this time more or less alone (other than Mitch, who helped with a lot of mixing and cleaning), as my family was too busy. Was this a little ambitious to do while pregnant and during heavy editing season? Definitely, but even though it was exhausting, it filled my creative cup and was so rewarding mentally. This year I decided to recreate some of the leaning houses from the canals of Amsterdam. It took me 2.5 weeks of working on it pretty much every single evening, and in total, over 35 large pieces of gingerbread had to be templated, mixed, cut, and baked. That’s not including the decorating and smaller pieces. Needless to say, I did not even come close to winning, but it was still fun to be a part of the festivities.
Lastly, I always like to put some work statistics:
Broke my own record for lack of posting on Instagram and didn’t post one single photo in 2025 that was taken that same year (that’s pregnancy survival mode for you right there)
Photographed 26 elopements and 14 smaller sessions
Took over 100000 photos and edited & delivered exactly 15,392 of them
Threw up once while working, but 6 times total (not too bad actually)
Had a number of firsts: photographed my first ski session in March (it was epic, I’d love to do it again), my first time photographing mountain bikers (also would love to do that again), and first time photographing on Gambier island, which meant getting there by boat and doing photos on a boat which was all very cool and sentimental
Only 1 helicopter cancellation (because of weather; probably a record)
3 gondola rides, 6 hiking adventures, 7 Jeep tours, and 5 helicopter rides
Spotted approximately 5 bears, each on different days, but all on Blackcomb Mountain.
Of course, I try not to take for granted how lucky I am to be doing this. I know I always say this, but I couldn’t do it without all the amazing people who trust me to photograph their memories in the making and be there for those intimate moments. I love you all, so now the rest of the post is here to show YOU off! Enjoy!
