My why.
When I was sixteen, my dad died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack.
At first, I had so many things to hold onto — I could still hear his laugh. His voice. The house still felt like him. I had his shirts. His birthday cards. Little random voicemails of him just checking in or saying to call him back. Small, random gifts that didn’t seem meaningful at the time but quickly became my most treasured possessions.
Then we moved. I got a new phone. Backups failed. Voicemails cleared. Time passed. And suddenly, the things I had of him started to disappear — one by one.
Until all I had left were photographs.
Those photographs did more than remind me what he looked like. They reminded me what it felt like to sit beside him.
To laugh with him.
To be loved by him.
To live in the little, ordinary moments that made up our world.
My parents had the kind of love you’d think only exists in storybooks.
They were best friends — endlessly in love, always laughing, never fighting, totally inseparable. Every night, they’d sit outside on the patio for hours, just talking. Their marriage had big moments, but it was mostly made of what could be seen as ordinary days. Small moments at family dinners filled with laughter. Grocery store runs returning with little surprises. A glass of wine on the porch. Those small moments were all made bigger because of how much they loved each other.
Looking back, I think that’s where my love for the in-between began.
Growing up, I didn’t just dream of my own love story. I was obsessed with everyone else’s.
I’d ask my friends’ parents how they met. I’d imagine strangers’ weddings for fun.
I noticed pinkies linking at coffee counters.
Winks exchanged across crowded rooms.
These little rituals often go unnoticed — but are everything when you’re the one in them.
I’ve come to believe the small moments are the big ones.
As time moves on, as people pass, and as memories soften around the edges — it’s not the grand gestures we miss most.
It’s how someone made us feel when they walked in the room.
It’s the way they could make you laugh when you were sad.
It’s how they knew what you needed to hear before you did.
It’s being known in the smallest of ways.
It’s the way they made you feel in the in-between.
That’s why I love what I do. That’s why I am here.
Not to curate perfection — but to photograph things exactly as they are.
To help you hold onto what’s real.
What’s fleeting.
What matters most.
Because at the end of the day, you will want to remember everything exactly as it was. Not the photoshopped, rewritten version, but the real one.
And that will always be my why.
Love,
Kirstin
