New ZealandHAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! Bye 2022. Welcome to 2023.
I started to write this article ten times and deleted all the content.
I was not sure about how I wanted to express my feeling overlooking the year. I will start in order to make it easier because A LOT has happened this year.
If you want to skip to the pictures, click here
I read my article from last year and funny enough, this is the continuation of the story. Because you know what? I am still in Alberta and I have a dog!!! YES. The year started with me giving my Montreal flat away and exploring the west side of Canada, from Calgary to Vancouver and deciding that I will stay in Calgary.
Speaking about that, a really funny fact about this year would be how many times I “moved”. I count moving as lived in a place for more than a week. 14. I lived in 14 different places this year! That is crazy! I guess I got a taste of the nomad life I seek one day.
I understand why people can’t keep up with what I am doing because I am not sure what I am doing myself. This year I have been searching for the real me. For who I wanted to be. I think I finally found it but it took me a little bit of time.
I love where I am now, I love that I get to call the Rockies “home” and that I can go explore them whenever and wherever I want. No rush of the tourists that have to see them all (especially the “classic locations”) in a week. When I first came here and I was thinking that one day I would live here, I never thought it would happen so quickly!
I had trouble with staying in one place but I also had trouble with my job. It has been too long since I wanted to develop my photography. I kept pushing it away because I never thought I was good enough and it was not the right time. But when is the right time really? And if I learned something from my puppy is that if you don’t try, you will never succeed. So it is what I did. I quit and right now I am trying. And I might not have a calendar booked for next year but I am trying my best to build a business for myself and that is hard and it takes time but I am all in. If you hear anyone who wants to get married or elope around you, please send them my way! I just finished my new website that I keep improving everyday as my training goes.
About my little pup. Yeah I took a leap at the end of last year and decided I was getting a puppy Samoyed! I had a plan, I read a lot, I was ready to do classes and train him and everything. I got him and he was the most beautiful gift I could ever have. I love him with all my heart. Even when it was though. And oh boy, it was tough. I discovered very quickly that Silas couldn’t stay alone. He was crazy when left alone. He would either, eat everything he could find, including doors, or bark to death forever in his crate (he barked for 4h straight once), or even escape his crate and do both (bark and eat stuff). I was really desperate during the summer because I couldn’t do anything because I couldn’t leave him alone. I couldn’t go to the gym anymore for example.
The desperation increased when I decided to move alone in a flat in October and I couldn’t have him not fine alone. I almost gave him up and decided to wait until I came back from Europe to decided. I guess he felt something because when I got back, my old roommate that was keeping him, told me she tried leaving him alone and he was fine… And ever since, he is fine alone! I can’t explain it but I am so thankful that it happened. I loved him SO MUCH but I couldn’t do it anymore (and I tried trainers and techniques that were not working).
I already talked a lot about the year but I can’t think about anything else to say than the end of the year. I got the chance to go back to France for my Grand Father’s 95th birthday. And I wouldn’t have been able to go if it were not for me quitting my job in September. And yes, it is a chance because today, he is laying in an hospital bed. He fell a few days before Christmas and broke his coccyx. He had to get surgery and there was a 50/50 chance of survival for his age. Luckily enough, he made it! Bad luckily enough, we learned few days ago that he got COVID-19. He managed to go through the pandemic with not catching it, and now that he is at his weakest, he caught it.
I know the odds and I know what can happen and it breaks my heart but I stay optimistic. I wish it was easier for me to go back to see him but it is not. So right now, all I can do is be grateful for having being able to go and see him in November and send him all the good and positive energy I have so he goes through this.
So sorry to end this on a sad note but that is where my head is at right now and that is why I wrote this article ten times.
Without transition, I wish you all again a happy new year, full of change in your direction. Believe in your dreams even if they seem crazy and just live fully I guess!
Here is where I was last year!
January 2022 – Alberta, Canada
In January, I flew out for a week from Calgary to Montreal in order to move out of my flat in Montreal and when I got back to Calgary, I got a puppy dog!! A real life changing moment for sure.
February 2022 – Alberta, Canada
In February, I decided that I needed to change my job. I quit the agency I was in and got a new job in another agency at the beginning of March. Still doing websites.
March 2022 – Vancouver, BC, Canada
I decided to move to Vancouver for two months with a friend of mine to see if I liked life there. My take on Vancouver? Too much of a RAINcouver for me! I did not leave Normandy to end up in the rainiest place in Canada! (It is a beautiful city though).
April 2022 – Tofino, BC, Canada
May 2022 – Montreal, Quebec, Canada
I flew back to Montreal at the end of April because I had to take care of my camper van. My camper is stored every winter and gets out of storage in May each year. I flew with the pup because I was there until the end of June for a photography contract.
June 2022 – Montreal, Quebec / Calgary, Alberta, Canada
June was a BIG month for me and my photography. With my friend Thomas, we went to Gaspesie to capture adventure moments of Cap Aventure. Drone from a boat to get whales, Kayak with seals, paddle boarding in a National Park… It was an amazing experience.
Then I flew back to Calgary and I had my first ever elopement shoot that I offered myself for my birthday. This shoot is what changed my life this year. I cannot be more thankful to Lena who organized it. We hiked up for sunrise and took pictures of the couple getting fake married. While I was up there, I thought to myself that THAT was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wanted to capture those moments. And ever since I hiked back down, I have worked towards that goal.
July 2022 – Alberta, Canada
July has been a lot of exploring the Rockies, camping, paddle boarding… There also was the Stampede (Cowboy festival) in Calgary but I didn’t really took pictures for that!
August 2022 – Alberta, Canada
In August I did a small burn out and went outside to clear my head and try to refocus my life and my goals.
Went back to Peyto Lake for sunset. WOW. I was speechless by this beauty. It was just Silas, me and a group of 4 people. That’s it!
Discovering Abraham Lake, my favorite lake of them all!
September 2022 – Calgary, Alberta, Canada
September has been a lot of discovering the Rockies and longer hikes. My old roommate Lara and her bf Arnaud came to visit and hikes with me Mount Assiniboine. I am prepin an article about it but I didn’t had time yet to do it.
Oh and yeah I forgot. September is the month I quit my developer life to pursue my dream job: Adventure weddings and elopement photographer. No I didn’t have clients yet, I didn’t have anything figured out but I couldn’t do the development any more. I needed to do this for me and give it a shot. If it works, it works, if it does not, it does not. But at least I would have tried.
October 2022 – Calgary, Alberta, Canada
In October, I finally moved to my own place in Calgary and I explored the fall season to the fullest. I also bought another van and had to drive it from Montreal to Calgary. It took me 4 days to do the trip, ending in an horrible snow storm at the end. But I made it! A second time! To sum it up, I want to sell my camper in Montreal in May 2023 but I wanted to buy a new one here in Calgary. I found an opportunity and I decided to go for it!
November 2022 – France, Portugal & USA
In November I went back to Europe to celebrate my family. I couldn’t see my father but I celebrated my grand father’s 95th birthday (Yes you read it right!!) and my mom’s birthday and my sister’s birthday (25th!). I am SO GLAD I went. Who knows what can happen in life right? And today, with my grand father at the hospital is proof of that. I got to see him for his birthday.
After Europe, I went to see my family in the US for Thanksgiving. I hadn’t been able to do that since Covid and I was so glad to get to spend time with all of them!
December 2022 – Calgary, Alberta, Canada
December was all about settling back in the city, do albertan things like cut my own Christmas Tree or ice skate on wild ice.
That is a wrap for 2022.
May 2023 be sweeter than the end of 2022.
I wish you all a Happy new year!
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