10 years ago I was called to photograph a birth. My husband and I were contemplating adopting, so part of me selfishly wanted to shoot to realize what I would be missing. Little did I know I would fall in love in photographing these sessions. Being a photographer grants you access to the craziest stories.

My husband called me while driving back from an 8 hour birth.

P: You ok? he asked.

Me:Yeah, I think. I answered.

P: How was it?

Me: It was like a sci-fi / Romantic movie.

10 years later. That is still accurate.

Not perfect. Just... less like I was constantly ChatGPT-ing (is that even a word?) things that other adults seem to know.

Then again, I live in Miami, where “stable” is a relative term. Half the city is reinventing itself every six months, and the other half is stuck in traffic on the causeway.

Also, I’m a freelance photographer.

So stability has always felt less like a destination and more like a rumor.

The last year has been... a lot.

Loss. Grief. Gratitude. Fear. Hope. Sleepless nights. Waiting rooms. Tiny moments of joy that somehow mattered more than the big ones.

It’s been the kind of year that quietly walks into your life, rearranges all the furniture, and leaves without putting anything back.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I started asking questions I hadn’t asked myself in years.

Why do I still make photographs?

Is this the life I want?

Lately I’ve become convinced I should leave the beach for the mountains.

Which is funny, because I haven’t actually been to the beach in months.

I’d never experienced grief like this before.

It has a remarkable way of deleting all the unnecessary tabs open in your brain.

Suddenly the only question left is:

What do you actually want?

It’s the most obvious lesson any of us will ever learn. It doesn’t care about politics,

religion, race, careers, or social media followers. And yet we’re remarkably good at

pretending life stretches endlessly ahead of us. We stay busy. We scroll. We postpone.

We tell ourselves we’ll start “when things calm down.”

I’m guilty of it too.

Life is temporary.

An obvious truth that somehow keeps surprising us.

Instead, we spend an incredible amount of energy acting like we’ll finally start living after we answer a few more emails.

I’m very good at this.

I make a living taking photographs, and I genuinely love it.

But somewhere between client work, editing, deadlines, invoices, and trying to remember where I parked, I realized something uncomfortable.

I wasn’t making enough photographs just because I wanted to.

I also own an impressive collection of books that travel everywhere with me.

Reading them seems optional.

So this Substack is my attempt to stop waiting for the perfect moment.

Think of it as a series of creative experiments.

Some will involve photography.

Some won’t.

Some will probably fail spectacularly.

Others might accidentally change the way I see the world.

I’m not writing because I’ve got my sh*t together,

If anything, this newsletter is evidence that I haven’t.

I’m writing because I suspect there are a lot of us walking around pretending we know exactly what we’re doing.

Maybe the trick isn’t becoming an expert.

Maybe it’s staying curious long enough to surprise yourself.

Welcome to The Art of Pretending I Know What I’m Doing.

Still one of my favorite photographs.

My sister on the left. Me on the right, sporting a black eye after falling down the stairs while desperately trying to save all my arts and crafts.

Maybe life was trying to teach me early that a life in the arts comes with a few bruises.

The good news? The bruises fade.

The memories—and sometimes the photographs—don’t.