Looking Back to Move Forward

The cursor blinked as I scrolled through folders labeled by month: May 2025, June 2025, September 2025. Each click revealed hundreds of images: farmers working, planters in the field, faces lit by the glow of a sunset. Twenty-eight years into this work, and I’m still amazed at how much a single year can hold.

It was last week when I finally carved out time to review the year’s work. The winter light came through my office window, flooding my monitor with light, the kind that only happens this time of year. Outside, the thermometer was bottoming out at 18 degrees.

Most years, I put this off until after the holidays, but something about 2025 felt different. Maybe it was turning another year older myself. Or maybe it was just the quiet realization that time moves faster when you’re not paying attention.

I started looking at all the portraits. Faces stared back at me from the screen: young farmers, veteran producers, industry leaders, researchers. Some I’d photographed multiple times over the years. Others were new to me, representing the constant evolution of agriculture.

The stories I wrote jumped off the screen, from pitmasters trying to perfect protein powered by soybeans to trade teams visiting a Virginia farm for the first time. Each assignment carried its own patterns, its own challenges, its own moments where the subject relaxed enough to let me see who they really were.

Some of my best images from 2025 happened in those in-between moments. The laugh between posed shots. The way someone’s hands moved when they talked about their work. The glance they gave to the horizon said more than words could.

Reflection after assignments matters too. Conversations that happened after the interview questions and photos were wrapped up. The lunch where someone finally tells you what they’re really thinking about. The drive home when you replay the day thinking about angles, equipment and ways you could’ve improved the assignment.

Twenty-eight years in, I’m still learning to recognize moments and still learning when to put the camera down and listen—still learning the difference between taking a picture and making a photograph that means something.

Intermingled throughout the folders were plenty of personal photos. The ones that don’t go with any assignment but that I take because something catches my eye. Fog surrounding a gas station at dusk. A toolbox covered with stickers. The way light hits a grain bin on a deserted gravel road at sunrise.

These images don’t have clients or deadlines attached to them. They exist because I still love the act of taking pictures, even after years of doing this professionally. That matters more than I usually admit. They remind me why I started doing this work in the first place, back when every assignment felt new and every good image felt like a small victory.

As I closed the folders and powered down the computer, I thought about what 2026 might bring. More photos and stories, certainly. More farmers to meet, more changes in agriculture to document, and, hopefully, more moments when everything aligns perfectly.

But I’m also thinking about being more deliberate and spending an extra hour when a story needs it—asking the follow-up question instead of moving on and printing the images that matter instead of leaving them buried in digital files where only I see them.

The year ahead will bring its own demands. But it’ll also bring opportunities to do better work because I took the time to understand what this year taught me. One thing is clear: the stories told, the people met, and the lessons learned only become clear when you stop long enough to see them.