2019 Recap || A Decade of Sonja K Photography

Wow - on the last day of 2019 I realized that my business as Sonja K Photography was officially 10 years old- a full decade of making photographs as a professional. Pretty awesome! As we embark on this next decade together, I’m going to share a bit about the last year. It was a beautiful year and a heartbreaking year. It went by both at the speed of light and also at the pace of a snail (can you tell I read a lot of toddler books these days?) with some really high highs and some really sad lows, but I’m excited for what 2020 is going to bring, and I’m having fun looking back at all the amazing things 2019 held. This is a long one, so get your coffee and a cozy blanket and if you fall asleep, that’s okay.

I don’t even really have the words to say what a wild year 2019 was for my business and also for our family. We began the year by moving from Fort Collins, Colorado, across the country, to the pacific northwest - literally celebrating NYE in Elko, Nevada with a Penske truck filled with everything we owned parked outside the hotel. Max was hired for his dream job with a fly fishing travel company in Ashland, Oregon, so we left our home of 20 years, said goodbye Colorado, and embarked on this new journey out here on the west coast. It has been an adventure to say the least. As a wedding photographer, I book out my season over a year in advance, so when Max accepted the position in Oregon, I had a full wedding season booked in Colorado for 2019. We said yes, and so I flew back for every wedding. With a toddler. That was about 22 flights for the year. Was it worth it? 100%. Would I ever do it again? Yes! I’m 100% doing it again this year for the majority of my 2020 weddings! Woohoo! The best part of my job is working with the chillest, most laid-back, hilarious, amazing, talented and inspiring people, and right now most of those people are getting married in Colorado. My business is an organic, slow-growing, referral-based business, so I know it’s going to take years to build what I had in Colorado on the west coast, and until that day comes, I’m just going to continue to say ‘yes’ to whatever comes my way- whether that’s in Colorado, or Oregon, or California, or Hawaii, or Italy!! (hey, I have to dream, right?). Travel is a priority in our family - one of the main reasons we decided Max should go for it and take this job in Oregon is because it’s allowing him to travel the world, and in turn we will eventually be able to travel the world with our family, too. And we also said yes because I wasn’t ready to fully say goodbye to Colorado, and am really enjoying coming back every month or so and getting to see friends and family on every trip. It’s definitely been a roller-coaster of a year, but also one of the most fun and most rewarding years, thanks to all the amazing humans I got to photograph. Since I didn’t blog much of anything last year, here’s a quick snapshot (read: super long post) of some of the work I got to do. I’ll be trying to blog each of these weddings individually, along with all my weddings from 2018 that didn’t hit the website (whewps!), but for now here’s a highlight reel of the past year! Cheers to all the awesome humans who got married, and thank you to everyone who hired me to photograph their life-events, engagements, families, weddings, doggies, kitties, and gorgeous mugs in 2019.

The photos begin with some of the sweet engagements I got to photograph all over Colorado, from Fort Collins to Rocky Mountain National Park, some headshots and personal branding sessions (I even got in front of the camera a bit, thanks to my lovely friend Sarah with Sarah Hill Photography at her Sugar Hill Studio), some personal portraits of new and old friends, a few family sessions, and ends with all my amazing wedding clients. I am so thankful to all of the people who supported my business in 2019 and through the last decade- I wouldn’t be able to do this without your love, so thank you a million times over, and bring on 2020!!