When Thomas collected his favorite pictures from the past year for his only annual post I also had a look through our year in photographs. A number of my favorites differ from his, but one thing that stood out to me was just how many photographs from the past year I truly loved. When you start any creative project there's this gap between the work you want to create and what you can create. Expertise is not learned overnight and while I devoured the work of Tim Walker and Rodney Smith and others back in my early days of blogging and photography, my work was a far cry from theirs (my work is probably still a far cry from theirs!). It can be incredibly frustrating to have an idea of what you want your art to look like and then time and time again see your art fall short of that lofty goal. Even that frustration in the beginning is a good thing though--recognizing your need for improvement is necessary in order to strive for better. Recognizing good, mediocre, and bad art is necessary for ultimately creating good art. If we thought everything we did was brilliant, we'd never feel the need to improve. Bad and mediocre are necessary steps towards good and amazing.

Most years when I look back on photographs only a few shoots or even just shots please me. I'll look at those photographs and think "yes, those ones I'm happy with." While I'll only see the problems in other shoots--times when I don't love the outfits in retrospect, or I regret an editing choice, or only see the problems in exposure, focus, or composition, or general lack of inspiration and personality in a shoot. Looking back on 2019 I'm surprised and pleased by how many photographs and shoots I am still genuinely happy with. It was quite a good year for photographs; partly due as well to the lovely spring we had and the beautiful areas I was privileged to wander and explore. I also have to berate myself for certain shoots I loathed at the time and that now I think, "that was perfectly lovely, why did you beat yourself up over it?!" (This is one such shoot; I didn't like it much when I posted, but now I think has a quiet beauty.) My mental vision of how I want my pictures to look is finally lining up with my skills and finished product. There's always still room for improvement and more to learn, but I've reached a point where what I want to create looks like what I can and do create and that feels pretty amazing. It's been more than a decade in development, so I suppose it's about time! This also makes for excellent timing however as I'm looking forward to selling my first ever prints soon. I received my first samples this week and it was remarkable holding my work in my hands for the first time. I'm thrilled with how they look and while I'm starting small (a few postcards and a handful of larger prints) I'm so excited to share the work with you.
We're quite early into January, a bitter and bleak month to shoot in, but despite the elements being harsh I love how calm and quiet these pictures look. I've managed to find inspiration in a season I usually hate; I've focused on the warm, earthy tones and textures and created a shoot I think is beautiful in it's own way. I even managed to cajole my dog into a few photographs! Ironically, life has been anything but calm and quiet lately despite what the pictures might look like, and I'm not just referring to the literal storm that swept through Ireland on Monday! Between all the work I've been putting into new products and my shop, my patron, and the general awkward bits of life we all deal with (awk taxes!), life has been full and busy. But as much as I like the calm and quiet, full and busy is good as well. New challenges force you to grow, busy schedules to prioritize, and chaos makes you appreciate the quiet moments all the more when they do come again.

Whew! That seems like a lot of steps, but it basically boils down to being gentle on my hair and avoiding unnecessary damage. People always want to know how to make their hair healthier, but the first step is just letting it be itself more naturally, less washes, less products, less heat, etc. Rather than trying to correct problems with a lot of products I just try to be gentle with my hair. I’ve done a lot of damage to my hair in the past with bleach and wild colors, but I’ve always managed to get it back not with products or pills, but simple, everyday care steps. Your hair might need different steps or just slightly different versions of these steps, so keep in mind the trick isn’t to copy everything I do but pay attention to what your hair responds to.

This lesson is illustrated in all of the characters. We see Meg in her youth saying “let me have my fun this one night and then I promise to give up frivolous things” only to continue to struggle with her desire for pretty dresses and a more comfortable life as a young wife and mother. Meg’s not a failure because she couldn’t fulfill the ambitious promise to never be frivolous again she impetuously made in her youth, she’s human because temptation never leaves. And ultimately it is the fact that this struggle didn’t disappear for her that makes her sacrifice of a nice dress so her husband can have a new coat all the more significant. If she hadn’t struggled with her desire for nice things, then her sacrifice would be of no value. It is through her continued struggle we can learn to have patience for our own inevitable weaknesses and failures, but also be reminded to do better and try, try again. Failure is not the end, but merely a bump in the road. Perseverance is often associated with lofty goals. We always hear stories of the aspiring author who is rejected by dozens of publishers before finally being accepted (they then go on to be a huge success). We’re told “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” But what about perseverance in the humdrum and everyday parts of life? What of our attempts to be better people; less prone to outbursts of anger, quicker to forgive, more patient, etc? The easiest analogy for me as a fashion blogger and self-described clothes horse is my desire to be a better consumer. I hate the thought that cheap clothes I’m buying are contributing to poor wages and unsafe working conditions, but I also have a desire to acquire all of the pretty dresses. Choosing to shop more ethically is not a decision I get to make once and never face again. Instead I’m constantly surrounded by temptation and frequently have to give myself a mental kick.
The repetition of struggle and remorse to struggle and remorse and occasional triumph in Little Women is such a necessary arc too often missing in our modern lives and stories. Most books or movies will present a central conflict which the protagonist(s) will face and despite setbacks, will eventually overcome. If another conflict presents itself later in the book or series, it will be a new conflict; a new villain, a new challenge. Rarely, if ever, can I recall a modern story that revolves around a character with a weakness that is not completely vanquished and often the weakness is something they need to overcome in order to become our hero/heroine. But in Little Women we are presented with several protagonists who remain our protagonists without being completely purged of their flaws. Meg will still covet, Jo and Marmee’s tempers don’t disappear, but rather are managed by their perseverance and determination to be better people, Amy’s vanity doesn’t wash away. And to me, that is the most priceless lesson of them all. Not that hard work will remove us of our vices, but rather that with hard work our burdens will become more bearable.