In the almost decade that we lived on Vashon Island in the Pacific Northwest, I probably photographed the sunset view from our picture window every day. I have thousands of images of the sun setting over Colvos Passage, some on my phone but most in my digital library, and I love them all. It is a magical place to live and I’m so glad to have all these memories now that we are living across the country in rural Maine.
Vashon is a short ferry ride from Seattle, and for the whole time we lived on an island I worked at least 3 days a week in the city. Getting to work necessitated a ferry commute which could take 90 minutes one way on a good day, or two hours each way on a tougher day. Sometimes I would walk on as a passenger and take public transportation from West Seattle to Capitol Hill, but most days I drove on with my vehicle because I had errands to run or an event for work. It required the kind of patience that I definitely didn’t have when we first moved there, but I learned and embraced just a few years into our time there.
I credit the island life for inspiring me to become a professional photographer. I had always taken snapshots, but living in such a beautiful place made me want to learn and figure out what all those buttons on my DSLR actually did. I started taking online classes and forcing myself to shoot in manual mode every day to accelerate learning. In 2015 I had my first photography show which was the first time I got feedback that I might be good at this. By 2017 I had enough confidence to put the word out that I was available. I just wanted the opportunity to practice what I was learning, so I offered to shoot anything and everyone for free. I ended up getting paid in many creative ways (mostly wine) by generous and happy clients, and I got a ton of experience. By 2018 I was getting hired professionally and in 2019, I became the primary photographer for my architecture firm.
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