By the end of any given year, I always wind up forgetting the things that happened at the beginning.
Coming into December, I was ready to chalk this year up as a loss. It took me going through the nearly 100,000 photographs I made this year to realize how much I was able to fit in.
This year, I moved six times and lived in four different cities, graduated from Cornell University, worked at three different news organizations, racked up 8,000 miles on my ‘94 Corolla, made a bunch of new friends, barely slept a wink, and had a ton of fun. The photos below are some of the things I was lucky enough to find on those journeys.
2018 started with my final semester of college, which involved me giving over the reins of The Cornell Daily Sun's photo department after a two-year run, but still picking up my camera for an event or ten.
Like any twenty-something about to enter the real world, I had a mild panic about entering the real world and went to California in an effort to clear my head.
I wound up having a housing emergency when I returned from California. Miraculously, I managed to find housing thanks to a close friend, secure my first photo internship of this year, and then graduate from Cornell alongside a bunch of close friends.
I got about three days to unpack, cry, and repack after graduation. I hopped in my car and moved to Detroit, Mich., and quickly fell in love with it. I'd never lived in a city so diverse, so vibrant, so dedicated to improving itself and its people justly. I miss it dearly.
I left Detroit completely exhausted, and took a well deserved vacation, traveling by myself and with family.
I moved to Washington, D.C. to work as a photo editing intern at NPR, a dream of mine come true. I got to highlight some spellbinding work from amazing photographers -- some of the most rewarding work I've ever gotten to do. And I spent quite a bit of time behind a certain Tiny Desk.
I crossed off a big item on my photo bucket list, and attended the Eddie Adams Workshop, where I was a member of Team Tie Dye. I made some wonderful friends and mentors, and photographed Duke Devlin, a hippie that came upstate for Woodstock '69 and never left, for my assignment.
I was assigned to photograph Matthew Shepard's interment service at Washington National Cathedral for NPR, and it was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever gotten to witness. After the service ended, I wound up meeting the DC Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a locally famous group of drag nuns. Five days after the cathedral service, we linked up again in Dupont Circle for the DC Drag Race.
I went back to Madison Square Garden for the third consecutive year to photograph Cornell hockey -- this time, for Cornell's athletic department.
My last weeks at NPR saw me on Capitol Hill extremely often; first for portraits of members of Congress, and then for a Presidential funeral. Nothing made me feel more like a badass than rolling up to the hill in a black Chevy Suburban.
2018 ended the way I'd love if every year ended: surrounded by my family. I'll be home in Philadelphia for the longest period of my life since 2013. It might just be a welcome change.
I spent a lot of this year in my own way. I was taking in and loving the work of so many people I admired, and as a result, I had this idea in my head of the images I should be making. Not the images I want to make, but the ones I was expected to. I got fed up with my own way of looking at the world, frustrated that it wasn't closer to the artists I look up to.
What got me out of my own way at the end of it were the folks I owe everything to; my editors and mentors who catered to my strengths, let me know what worked in my images and why, and reminded me that my way of seeing is a valid way. And the friends and family that supported me and kept me sane.
I hope you end this year, and start the next one, surrounded by people and things you love. I hope you draw inspiration from all over, and are driven to be kind to those around you, and to hear and tell their stories.
Happy New Year, y'all. Let's have some fun.