hannahleekuhn

[hannahleekuhn]

My perfect DINKWC household.

#dink #DINKWC #photography #photoblog #mylife

[hannahleekuhn]

New Year's resolutions are difficult because life is busy and messy and constantly changing on the minute. However, I do think that having self reflection moments are good for your own self journey.

A NYR might be "Take your camera more places" while a reflective thought might be "I really enjoy looking back on intimate moments of joy and laugher from events".

One of them will make me feel bad if I forget my camera or don't take it to the next birthday party I go to. The other one makes me cherish the time I did and maybe that will make me eager and excited to bring it the next time around.

Also since I'm a professional, bringing $10,000 worth of camera equipment to the beach is a choice I can only make on days I do not plan on going in the water or leaving my bag around in hopes someone won't steal it. Feeling guilty about missing those moments on camera, when I did want to go swimming, isn't helpful.

Hope you enjoy these. I know I do.

#friendship #photoblog #averageday #lovemylife

[hannahleekuhn]

It's been a year.

I wrote a post last year that ended with "I hope that the next time I write on here I have news of feeling lifted up and have smiled more than I have frowned. If it’s another 2 years before I do that so be it. I am only human. "

The answer is actually.....yes.

I do feel lifted up and I am aware that I smile more than I frown.

When I was a kid I wrote things down in notebooks all the time. Whether it was journaling or making up song lyrics or doodling, I constantly had notebooks thrown about in my bag and room. The thoughts that were in my head always found a way out and I made room for them to do so. I can't say I was judgement free as a handful of journal entries may have some memories skewed to be rose tinted, but all-in-all I still got a lot of info out.

This year I decided to journal again. I'm not sticking to writing once a day because that's WAY TOO MUCH PRESSURE for myself. Zero to 100 only works for some people. Me personally: absolutely not. I am however, proud of the fact that I have written a total of 11 pages and I started on Jan 25th 2023. One month and 11 pages down, with that average I might actually write over 50 pages this year. Which will be the first year in over 10 years that I will accomplish a self goal of that size for writing for myself alone.

I do have scattered pages from 6 different journals through out the years and poems written on my phone notes, that show some insight to my state of mind these past 10 years. And maybe that has to do with my state of mind when I stopped writing regularly. That I didn't like my thoughts so much and so I kept them in.

Now as I'm about to turn 30, I find it very freeing to just write exactly what I think. If I am angry I just say so. If I'm sad, I let myself be present in that feeling. In fact on a journal entry dated on the 3rd of February I spent half a page talking about how I don't like the gel pen I'm using to write because it's super hard to stay neat in my lettering and not slip into half cursive/half printed every other word. Which was exactly what I was frustrated with. Happy in my day, frustrated with a pen for making my page look sloppy.

When I read that page back now I have a huge grin on my face because HOW SILLY. I'm not an insta famous bullet journaling mastermind, nobody but me will see my page and yet for a whole page I was worried about my penmanship. That's the most honest truth I could have written about. Nothing in my life was as frustrating as a gel pen and that is a FREAKING BLESSING.

I am doing so well. I feel guilty for that when I hear friends or family struggling with things because I actually think I have my shit together for the first time in YEARS.

I have an apartment that feels home when I walk in the door, a husband who loves my full self at my best and absolute worst, a job I feel confident about, and a blooming new outlook on life.

Sure there are things I am working on. I'm still in and out of therapy and constantly growing to forgive myself and love myself authentically, AND I do feel like for the first time in awhile I'm meeting myself exactly where I am and just rolling with it.

I'm not trying to force myself to be or say or feel anything. I'm just allowing myself the space to exist.

And that is a beautiful fucking place to be.

*a blog post I wrote in 2017 for work called "Adjust your gratitude" helps remind me of all the good on days I struggle. If you need a gentle reminder, that's a 5 minute activity that can really help. https://www.soul-flower.com/blog/adjust-your-gratitude/

#selflove #turning30

[hannahleekuhn]

I think nature is my favorite texture to a portrait. I'm unsure of why some people in this world think that in studio portraits with fake lighting is more sophisticated than the sun. I love editorial images, but they do feel fake. Like their goal is to push materials instead of emotion.

Now not all studio shots do that. So don't come for me internet. I have some favorite in studio photographs as well.... I just feel more alive when I am working with the air, the sun, temperature, and shadows. Creating something the earth is allowing me to be apart of.

There's something very magical and pure to me in that.

[hannahleekuhn]

Also fun fact, I almost 100% prefer black and white photos now.

Maybe it’s a very real representation of how I view my world is lacking in color, emotion and that sense of vibrancy. 

So instead I focus on contrast, mood, the raw and realness of subject without distraction of color. 

Food for thought. 

#blackandwhiteportrait

[hannahleekuhn]

Sometimes I feel like I am a strange fit for a wedding photographer. Most wedding photographers are “big picture” kind of shooters, and I want the intimacy of the emotion as the subject. Probably why I am so drawn to portraits in every sense. 

I don’t always need the sharpest photo, or the best lighting or the ‘insta’ shot. I want the one that makes people want to reach out and touch someone or feel a spark of recognition in the moment. 

People still hire me so it must work. 

[hannahleekuhn]

Side Note*

Photography is one of the only things I am still actively doing and feeling creative about. So I think I am going to post some of my favorite shots from the last few years. To have a visual oasis, free of my mind. Even though I do feel a low vibration, like the beginning of a shock from a static sweater, when I do photography. 

Hopefully over time I may get back that love of art I once had. 

[hannahleekuhn]

2022

I haven’t written anything here since 2019, the year that started my shift into what I am calling ‘bitterness’. When I was traveling in my early twenties I had friends in my 30′s telling me that all of my positive and bubbly personality would fade with age. 2019 was the first year it hit me: the sheer weight of daily negativity. 

So I did what any person my age *should* do and I went back to therapy. Therapy is and will always be a good thing, a hard thing and an absolute place of change. I realized that the bubbly, positive version of me wasn’t dying or being lost. In fact, what I think now as I learn to balance the overwhelming feelings of all the social and economical and physical pain the world and all people are going through, is that we protect it. That I put it carefully in a box labeled for safe keeping and only let it out when I know I can experience it fully. 

I’m not sure if that makes sense, so I’ll try another way. Think about the last time you laughed until you cried or felt so moved by something it produced a raw emotion, whatever it is, even anger. The force of those feelings probably felt freeing right? That is our inner child, our inner self, that will always be connected to the truest and purest form of ourselves. 

From 2019 until 2020 I worked my ass off spiritually. Obviously 2020 hit hard and so I tried to hit harder with books and lectures and podcasts and a very steadily growing collection of crystals and candles. I was learning to allow the negativity and ‘bitterness’ to have a space and to not chastise myself for experiencing and living with such pain. Emotionally we were all feeling a connection as people, because it was the first time in my lifetime we were globally all facing the same narrative. A true universal shared experience that *most of us can relate to and say we understand it. 

I also lost my Grandma in 2019, we always say it was a good thing she died before covid as I wouldn’t have been able to be with her in her final days if she had stuck it out for 2020. Losing my best friend like that, my every Thursday dinner plans, my call anytime of day and I’ll be there person, really hit hard even if she died of old age in her sleep surrounded by a room full of people she loved for the days leading up to her death.

Then almost one entire year later I lost another best friend suddenly, tragically and completely broke open. In fact I can’t even begin to write about it and it’s been over a full year and I still open up my phone to call her and remember and I’m not sure when the shock is supposed to wear off but I can’t foresee it being any time soon. 

My meditation practice stopped (more like came crashing to a halt). And all the bitterness I had been learning to appreciate and meet it where it was at, started to consume me. I know what depression feels like, but this was different. This felt like walking death. Like every single thing that used to make me feel human was annoying. Things that make me laugh make me angry. Crying (which for my friends and family know is my safe space and happens all the time) is becoming impossible to do. I know doctors are calling it ‘covid exhaustion’ or ‘burnout’. To me it feels more like I completely lost faith in humanity and the experience I am supposed to have on Earth. 

All the work I did in 2020 seems like unattainable knowledge. I hear meditations and roll my eyes. This morning is the first time I even got through a meditation without thinking the thought ‘this is stupid’. Which should make me feel over the moon but instead I’m annoyed I don’t feel solid. I’ve been revisiting my workbook from my DBT group therapy and trying my practice of being present in the moment. In fact I am pretty sure my spirit guides are attempting to hit me over the head with the ‘exist in the present moment’ lesson right now because I hear it everywhere I go. 

So this is me recommitting to growth. This is my outward letter to myself to let myself know there is a reason for the pain and the numb. That the dissociation from my physical and mental body will not always win. And that someday I will make progress even if it is only 1%. 

I hope that the next time I write on here I have news of feeling lifted up and have smiled more than I have frowned. If it’s another 2 years before I do that so be it. I am only human. 

[hannahleekuhn]

Garden of the Gods, 2022

#colorado #garden of the gods

[hannahleekuhn]

down the rabbit hole

A poem

Too deep am I getting in

The noose of my own making

A cobweb of light attack

On my memories shaking

I can’t get out I can’t get out

I’m stuck in a loop

Never end

Stop

No repeating

But again again I see her rear her ugly head

Cut down

This belief I’m blinking

I stop

I just

Want to stop

Help help

It’s like I’m reaching out

With arms

And limbs

My hands my hands

Hold for I am shaking

Awake awake

As I slowly drown

Past darkness

Past knowing

I’m staring into the void

Just Hoping

That you see my wave

You see me drown

And know I am worth saving

I never stop to think

And know

I make my own self hatred

And while I call

And think I’m lost

The path is one I am taking

Maybe I just turn around

One day I just look for the light

Scream NO to my own making

And for once

Just once

Reach out my own hand

And see that I can save me

#poetry #poem #words

[hannahleekuhn]

I have a slight obsession with the water in Norway. I just didn’t think it was going to be this beautiful. 

#water #ocean #norway #travel #photography #photographer #nature #landscape #lofoten #roadtrip #Adventure #h2o #color #mountains

[hannahleekuhn]

Just a few shots from Day 3

#travel #travelphotography #Travelblog #photography #photographer #nature #mountains #arctic #norway #lofoten #map #ocean #nikon

[hannahleekuhn]

Hyggelig å treffe deg

Day 3 

First things first: BREAKFAST!!! Okay I need to say this, because europeans do breakfast buffets right. To start: tea, coffee & hot chocolate bar (though don’t drink the cocoa if you are use to american hot chocolate!) Moving to the left we have eggs scrambled or fried, meats for those who like that sort of thing, and a waffle maker in the corner with brown cheese, jam & crème fraîche to top. Then an array of warm fresh baked breads and an assortment of rye crackers. Followed by a pressed juice shot of either wheatgrass, carrot ginger, or beet. Behind that is a fresh fruit bar with berries, yogurt and a juice press with whole fruits for you to cut and make your own juice with. Then across from all that you have every topping you can think of for sandwiches, because open faced sandwiches or avocados & sprouts on crackers is apparently how the rest of the world wakes up. Cheers to you breakfast.  

Oh plane again Sam! Oh, you don’t like awful attempts at jokes that weren’t even correct pop culture references? Well I’m sure that’s why my father and sister didn’t laugh at 90% of the jokes I made on the trip...no tunneling about today? We’ll get to that later. 

Alright so we’re off, on another plane. This time we are heading up north to Tromsø to pick up our rental car and start our road trip down the Lofoten Islands! We were all so excited to finally feel like we were on our trip and not just chilling in airports. Once we landed we rushed through everything, having a contest to find our rental car (Josie won) and got settled in to discover...no GPS. So the whole trip I had assumed we would have a GPS, I mapped out geographic locations by longitude and latitudes so we were going to need a find a map asap. 

As stressful as it is not knowing where you are going, right when you get going, it’s a lot more stressful trying to find a map in a tourist town that is mostly closed due to it being sunday, and you being in the year 2017 when maps are only cool to those of us without cell service. We meet a nice  British man in a parking lot who points us in the right direction but it takes us a solid hour or more to locate a map in a gas station. Thankfully we had in fact been going the right way. 

We only drove 3 hours before checking in to a little red cabin on a hill in the mountains in Tennevoll. They had just closed their restaurant for the evening so we drove a little ways further to find another town with part of their grocery store open. Yes, in real life they have a tiny grocery store for late hours, and close the door to their slightly larger grocery store in the room next door. Easier for one person to handle I guess, but the other room wasn’t much bigger, honest. We got bread, cheese, a cucumber and decided we would get breakfast on the road the next morning. Josie did not like the bread, it was a sweet bread, but toasted in the oven with some cheese and cukes <3 Oh I loved it so much. Once dinner was over we headed to bed, had to be up early for a long driving day. 

At some point in the middle of the night Josie’s bed dropped a slat (wooden and not broken mind you) and jolted her right up and on to the couch in the other room. Yes it startled me, but I was too fast asleep to not let myself drift back off in a matter of minutes. Sleep you’ll find on this trip was necessary, but also like a luxury I hadn’t known in years. Note: I’m not the greatest sleeper. You can blame it on my ADD baby........

#travel #travelblog #travelblogger #norway #roadtrip #vacation #family #adventure #europe

[hannahleekuhn]

Oh here it goes, again

Day 1 

Dad got to JFK 7 hours early, Josie and I took the normal human route and pulled up to MSP at about 2 hours until takeoff. Of course there was a delay so we were able to stop for a wild mushroom quesadilla. While waiting at the airport we were able to make a solid inside joke...hey Jo, that’s so carats....help an old lady figure out her cellphone problems, cure my own headache and for Jo to go down a children’s slide and skin both of her elbows (now that’s classic Jo). Once we got on the plane we flew to JFK to meet up with my dad before heading off on our 8 hour flight to Oslo, Norway. 

Day 2

We pretty much got the best seats on the airplane, right by the door, so extra legroom and first out in an emergency, which to our luck we had none. I slept a lot of the way, but the Jo duo didn’t so once we got to Oslo lufthavn, we just headed straight for the hotel for them to crash. Before we did that though we had to wait over an hour to get through customs and the only reason I’m going to put that in here is because I witnessed a moment that made me really proud to be my Dad’s daughter. 

There was this A****** old man behind us verbally abusing his wife to no end, and everyone was saying nothing. My sister and I were trying to avoid panic attacks and that’s when my dad just turned around and tells the guy to stop. The important thing here is I know I come from a good place, good hearts and strong minds, and that makes all the difference in the world. That and when the guy said “I’m stuck with her” *whining on the misery of having a loving and supporting wife of course* my dad just goes “well she’s stuck with you”. I cannot even began to capture that moment in a bottle, but I’ll remember it forever.  

Once we made it to the hotel I did yoga and tried to get myself into trip mind instead of work mind. Took a nice warm shower while my dad went and explored the hotel, and Josie fell right to bed. Everyone got a nap in before we went for some food & Josie’s first LEGAL beer at a bar! Note: It’s only exciting because she’s turning 21 in July, so only legal for the week of vacation. Once we were done eating and drinking we returned upstairs to sleep and dad read us some Poe before we turned off all the lights, shades and curtains and fell into a deep and heavy sleep. 

For exactly 4 hours before I was wide awake and started researching maps and directions and addresses to load on my phone before we would be out of wifi’s sweet comforting grasp. This I mind you, is on top of a 24 page itinerary I already had made for the trip. What can I say, once I get the notion of trip planning I’m off...on a spontaneous adventure that just so happens to come with pages and pages of options for every day, weather, city, time of year...etc. To be fair to my fellow wandering souls, I usually just go where the wind takes me, but this trip is what was saving me from my monotonous day in and day out routine, so planning was my mini wandering oasis. 

#trip #norway #travel #Travelblog #writing #omg #adventure

[hannahleekuhn]

#dover #england #ferry #travel #Travelblog #travelphotography #life #friends #love #water #whitecliffs #nature #landscape

[hannahleekuhn]

#travel #Travelblog #travelphotography #belgium #france #europe #roadtrip #friends #water #life #love

[hannahleekuhn]

#europe #Travelblog #travelphotography #travel #belgium #bruges #brugge #roadtrip #friends