Photo shoot: I got into this in high school. I just started shooting anything that was in front of me. I’d see dewdrops on the grass, flowers, and trees—whatever was in my world. 

Eye-to-eye: None of us know where my [artistic] eye came from because my dad is a nuclear engineer and my mom is a nurse practitioner. 

Youth on her side: There’s this naïve optimism in the space of being 23, chasing down what I want to do with my life, and being blissfully open-minded to the world. 

Desk job: My office tends to be the place where I do all of my digital darkroom work—editing, processing of the images, designing of the albums, packaging boxes, and storing images. 

Let there be light: One thing people don’t always look at is the light. I looked at house after house [before I bought], and they were all dark, little cubes. 

Say cheese: I have a lot of vintage antique cameras, and my husband has collected some of them. A few of the cameras are my late grandfather’s on my dad’s side. 

Sea and be seen: My good friend, interior designer Courtney Hardie, helped me pull pieces that are a mix of modern with coastal and nautical, everything from little pieces of coral to a shell mirror that subtly hints at the sea. 

Final snapshot: When all is said and done in 100 years, and but a handful of people remember my name, I will still have left a mark on this world that matters. I will have done something not for myself, but for other families and their loved ones.