With 2020 several weeks underway now, I’m just getting to reflect back on 2019, and just how much life changed. Danny and I became parents. And after years of photographing other people’s families, we finally started getting family portraits of our own.

And making up for lost time, with four different photo shoots of our own last year. These are from the most recent, when we headed down to the beach with friends for a gorgeous sunrise in November.

In January of 2019, I pressed pause on photography entirely for a few months of maternity leave when Danny and I flew to Korea to meet our daughter. Just before we left, Danny’s parents closed on their new house in town, after years of us encouraging them to move here from out of state, and when we got back from Korea we helped them finally get settled in as Florida residents.

In February 2019, we returned to Korea and officially became the overjoyed and sometimes-overwhelmed parents of a spitfire toddler who already knows she runs the world. As we began life together at home, neither Danny nor I focused on anything else for a solid six weeks — we just spent time together, visiting parks and introducing her to the beach, reading stories, hanging out with family, and celebrating her birthday as our brand-new baby somehow turned two only a month after becoming our baby.

I eased back into a very light work schedule as summer began. After so many years of waiting for this sweet girl and the major adjustment adoption was for all of us (and a move halfway around the world to a completely different climate, language, cuisine, culture, and family for her), I still really needed and wanted to be home, so I scheduled far fewer shoots than in years past. What was personally the fullest year for me in a long time was simultaneously the emptiest year, work-wise, since I launched this business back in 2011. Truth be told, I really needed that time not only to be with my girl, but to remember anew just how much I actually relish being behind a camera as my subjects snuggle and laugh and tease one another.

In the summer we took our first family trip, right around the same time our wonderful pup George’s health began deteriorating rapidly, and soon I was in full-time-caretaker mode for not only a rambunctious little girl who never slowed down, but a tired old dog who had lost all ability to walk and function independently. And then in November we grieved the loss of George, who had been a part of every holiday season Danny and I had ever spent together, just after we celebrated the happy milestone of ten years of marriage.

Now here we are, three weeks into 2020, and I’m still figuring out what a normal workload and work schedule look like for me with a now-nearly-three-year-old at home. Right now she’s napping, so I have some space to think — and blog for the first time since before my maternity leave began over a year ago! I’m trying hard to remember what it was like to have the time and energy to write a new blog post every single day, as I did a few years ago.

Life right now looks the way it should, and I’m so excited to make some changes — mostly small, maybe a couple somewhat big — to Laura Yang Photography this year so it looks and functions as it should to best meet the needs of my own family and of my clients. And in the meantime, here’s a little peek at some of my 2019 shoots.

Stay tuned for updates on what’s new for 2020 — and I promise it won’t be another year-plus before I get around to sharing them here on the blog!

~ Laura