Happy New Year!

It’s time for my 2023 Pet Photography Year in Review. I started this tradition two years ago. I choose my favorite photos from each photo shoot I had during the year.

As always, I am so grateful to all of my clients who entrust me to photograph their pets. I am 7 years into this career and I still can’t believe that this is my job!

When I think back on 2023, here are the things that immediately come to my mind:

• Epic travel and fun adventures with my fellow dog photographer bff Audrey Cox of Sunsets Unleashed

• Sweet senior dogs

• Tiny, tiny puppies

• Dog moms and dog dads who love their dogs

• Fun neighborhoods for photoshoots in Charlotte NC

In past years, a few of my very favorite photos come to mind right away. This year is no different.

What is different is that this year two of my most favorite photos aren’t of dogs. WHAT?? I know, right.

One of my Favorite Photos of 2023

This is one of my favorite photos in my 2023 Year in Review… of Axel the cat.

I love it for a couple of reasons.

1. I love symmetry in photos.

2. I also love that when I saw this cat toy, I had a vision and Axel fully cooperated with my vision. As pet photographers, sometimes there is luck involved in getting the outcome we want. This time I got lucky. Thank you Axel!

I submitted this photo for an Unleashed Education review and I recorded Charlotte Reeves saying she loves this photo. I really did. Whenever I need a pick me up, I get to hear Charlotte saying in her very cool Australian accent that she loves a photo I took.

2023 Bucket List Travel

Many of you who know me, know that I love to travel and this year I got to experience Iceland. This was a bucket list trip where I met a bucket list group of people if that’s even a thing. If it’s not a thing, it should be. I should create a bucket list of people I want to meet.

I attended Unleashed Education’s Style Lab in Iceland.

One of my favorite things in the world to do is to meet other dog loving pet photographers.

In Iceland, I got to meet Darlene of Pant the Town. I’ve known of Darlene for years through this blogging group. Not only did I get to meet her but I was paired with her and Audrey Cox at all of our photo shoots in Iceland. I got to spend time shooting beside Darlene and that was such a treat. We had a blast.

Two of my most favorite dog photographers in the world are Charlotte Reeves and Craig Turner-Bullock. I’ve met them both previously but it’d been several years so getting the chance to learn from them and shoot side by side with them was amazing. AND we were in Iceland.

Our other instructor was Alicja Zmyslowska. I hope I get to cross paths with her again in the future.

Going on retreats like these just feeds my travel and photography loving soul.

Here are my favorite photos from my time in Iceland.

2023 was a great year.

I got to return to Vancouver after dreaming about it for 5 years. Audrey and I first went in March of 2018. We loved it so much we returned 5 months later in August of 2018. We’d planned to go back in 2020 and but covid happened.

Here are my favorite photos from our trip in July to Vancouver. They’re all from the same shoot. This may be my favorite place I’ve ever photographed dogs. The mountains in the background and the beautiful evening light have everything to do with why I love these. The dogs were awesome too… but that goes without saying, right?

The dog jumping out of the frame photo makes me laugh every time I see it. She jumped WAY higher than I thought she would. LOL The photo isn’t cropped at all. This is exactly how it was framed on the back of the camera. Yes, sometimes the bloopers or outtakes are favorites.

Here are all of my 2023 Year in Review photos. I am grateful to all of these dogs and their moms and dads.

If you want to peek back at my previous favorite photos, here are those blog posts: 2022 Year In Review and 2021 Year in Review.

2023 has been a great year and I grateful to everyone who made that possible.

I’m wishing all of us good health, peace, love and happiness in 2024. Let’s make it a great one.

2024 travel is already in the works. Stay tuned.