Where do I begin?

It’s been 4 months since my last post but man does it feel like a lifetime.

Soo much has happened since then… I’ll do my best to give you the short version.

When we last chatted, I was hard at work on improving my sleep and overall wellness, and you know what? I was doing SO WELL!

Like “better than I’ve ever felt in my adult life” well.

It was kind of unbelievable, but it also felt surprisingly sustainable and that was a big deal!

Then work kicked into high gear and I kind of lost my footing.

Not terribly, just in an “okay I have to figure this out” kind of way… and I did, a little.

But when I tell you… this spring season was unexpectedly one of the busiest I’ve ever had? Whew. I was absolutely grateful, but man was it a challenge.

Previously during a busy season, I would just keep pushing and then figure out recovery afterwards. But re-learning how to take care of myself in a healthier way meant that I needed to do things differently.

And while I was working on regaining my footing, along came a sinus infection. Literally in the middle of the busy season 😒

Discouraged is not even the word. I had reschedules on top of reschedules!

I was down for a couple weeks, but thankfully I was (mostly) better in time for my week long Midwest work trip.

The work trip!

So… I’ve actually never done a trip like this before. Usually if I’m traveling for work, it’s to one city. But given how amazing I felt earlier in the year (when these plans were made lol), I was like oh this is totally doable!

What were the plans? Flying to Grand Rapids for a shoot… then driving to Detroit for a few shoots… then driving to Fort Wayne for a shoot… then driving to Indianapolis to fly home.

A lot, I know lol. I had rest days in there and each of the drives were about 2 to 2.5 hours so that was no problem, but starting the trip on the heels of being sick (and at the start of that crazy heatwave!) was definitely a challenge.

Despite how challenging it was, there were definitely some blessings sprinkled in and I was so grateful to Jehovah for helping me get through! Even when my flight home was cancelled because of storms at home 😂

So that brings me to where things really fell apart…

The week after I got back, we had a really sudden and tragic loss.

We lost a vibrant and caring husband, friend, father, brother, and uncle in an instant. Honestly I can barely even talk about this without crying because losing Mike has been one of the hardest things I’ve dealt with in a long time. He was such a dear friend to me (more like a big brother) and he will truly be missed.

I’ve been moving a bit slower and I’m grateful to my clients for their grace with the extra time I’ve needed lately.

So that’s the short-ish recap of the last 4 months.

I do have more to share- both photos and life stuff, but I’ll have to do that in a follow-up because I didn’t want this to be any longer!

Thanks for being here and catching up with me 🧡

-Danni

Am I becoming "one of those" people?

I think I’m becoming one of those “I don’t play about my sleep” people 😅

After weeks and weeks (and truthfully, months) of poor sleep, last month I said enough is enough.

I sat myself down and said “Danni, you HAVE to get serious about your sleep.”

Sleep was something that I took for granted for a long time… at the end of the day (whatever time that may be), you’ll fall asleep. But increasingly I noticed that simply was not the case. I even started to dread bedtime because I knew it meant being frustrated that I wasn’t asleep when I should be!

Early last month I found myself going to sleep pretty regularly between 2 and 4 AM and it was not by choice…

Then, the time changed.

And as happy as I was about longer daylight hours, I was equally unhappy because my sleep got even worse and I felt terrible!

That’s when I had to sit myself down and figure this out.

And by “figure this out”, I mean actually DO the things I know are supposed to help you sleep better but that I’ve never really done with any real consistency.

And when I tell you… the FIRST night after I did all the things? I fell asleep before 11 PM and slept for nearly 9 hours.

I was sold.

I immediately became a sleep enthusiast 😂

Now I’ve always loved sleep, but I’ve also always considered myself a “night owl”, mornings have always been difficult, and I just assumed it would always be that way.

But listen… in case you’re like me, I’m here to tell you, it really does make a difference when you’re intentional about your sleep.

We have a lot of habits that are actively sabotaging a good night’s rest and undoing them IS going to take some work, but man is it worth it.

So what are the things that I’ve found helpful?

It’s a long list, but a number of them require very little effort, just a willingness to try :) Some I also don’t do every night, but I’ve included them anyway because I didn’t want to leave anything off!

  • Low warm lighting

    I have smart bulbs and I lower the lights in my home between 8-9 PM and make the color warmer. No bright/blue lighting.

  • No TV after 9 PM

    If I’m planning to be in bed between 10-11 PM, this is about the time the TV goes off if it wasn’t already.

  • Night mode on phone/ipad

    This reduces the screen’s blue light and comes on automatically at 9 PM, but if I’m winding down earlier, I manually turn it on.

  • Grayscale on phone/ipad

    I don’t remember what this setting is called, but I make the screen on my devices black & white because if I still have things to do on them near bedtime, I want as little stimulation as possible.

  • Don’t read/do anything stimulating

    No researching, brainstorming, or strategizing. No exciting books, involved convos, etc. I’m trying to turn my brain down.

  • Do not disturb/Sleep mode

    Funny enough, my phone is often on Do Not Disturb because I don’t like notifications, but Apple’s “Sleep Mode” is even better! It darkens the lock screen and minimizes or eliminates notifications completely. I like this because even when I do pick up my phone, I’m not distracted by notifications.

  • Stretch and/or lymphatic massage

    I don’t do this regularly, but it’s nice when I am able to and I do think it helps.

  • Lean into sleepiness when it comes

    I used to have trouble with this because I would feel like getting sleepy around 8 PM was too early. I would push through and end up not getting sleepy again until much later. Now, I roll with it when it comes.

  • No nap during the day

    This is hard because I am a napper! But now I realize that usually when I feel sleepy in the afternoon, it’s because I need to either eat, drink more water, or move my body. On the occasions where I simply can’t stay awake, I take a short 15 minute nap so I don’t mess up my big sleep later.

  • Don’t eat too close to bedtime

    I’m still working on this because the whole getting to bed early thing is new to me, but I’ve found that it helps to eat a couple hours beforehand. I also discovered last week that fermented foods eaten too close to bedtime can mess with your sleep too, so I won’t be having kimchi with a late dinner again lol.

  • Keep phone in another room- or at the very least, across the room

    This is such a small thing, but makes a HUGE difference. Not having my phone within reach means that I’m not on it before bed or first thing in the morning.

  • Use a physical alarm clock

    This further helps me detach from needing to look at my phone first thing in the morning and makes me get out of bed to turn it off. Although lately I’ve actually been waking up before my alarm, so I just get up to make sure it doesn’t go off lol.

  • Cool bedroom/white noise

    These were a must for me already but on their own they weren’t enough. I just wanted to make sure they were included cuz even if I do all the other things, if my bedroom is too warm and I don’t have my air purifier/white noise on, I won’t be able to sleep.

  • Use a Sleep Calculator for wake time

    This is another thing I’ve been doing for years, but paired with everything else it’s been even more beneficial. Instead of arbitrarily setting a wakeup time, using a sleep calculator gives me the best times to wake up BETWEEN sleep cycles, not in the middle of one.

  • Mellow music

    This is not a must have, but sometimes when my brain feels especially busy, it does help having mellow music to turn it down.

    Here are a few playlists I’ve found helpful on Spotify:

Whew! I think that’s everything 😅

It’s a lot right?!

But man is it worth it. I’m sleeping better, more consistently, I actually look forward to bedtime, and enjoy waking up! Most days lol. Just this past weekend, I had a couple morning commitments but I got up early enough to have time for ME before diving into the day. That felt amazing, and I really want to make that my norm.

Honestly, had I not hit the low point I did, I know that I wouldn’t have gone THIS hard with it, but I’m grateful. It’s made me much more mindful about how things affect my sleep because I can see and feel the difference. It’s not as simple as “getting in the bed earlier”, it’s a whole process! I threw everything I could at this because I desperately needed something to work, so over time I’m sure I’ll have a simpler routine, but for now I’m just happy to be getting sleep and waking up earlier.

Now I’m not consistently getting 9 hours- truthfully, the first night was the only one I got THAT much sleep lol. But even with that, the quality of my sleep does seem to have improved. My mental ups and downs are still here, but It feels like I’m managing them better and I know it’s no coincidence.

Because it’s new, it still takes A LOT of effort to stick to such an early wind down and bed time, but I can’t argue with the results, and that motivates me to keep going.

So I guess I’ll end with an encouragement from this former night owl: get serious about your sleep! We know we need it, but we greatly underestimate just how important it is to literally everything.

Granted, there is no shortage of things that deprive us of sleep, but I encourage you to please do what you can to improve the quality and/or quantity of your sleep. You may surprise yourself with how big of difference it makes 🧡

-Danni

Long time, no chat

Has it really been almost a YEAR since we’ve chatted? 😩

Truthfully, I had all the best intentions of writing sooner but… you know, LIFE.

Funny enough, in my last post I was talking about my new habit of walking daily and today it just so happened that I went on a walk- for the first time in weeks. So that’s your update if you were interested in knowing how well I kept up with that habit lol.

Last year was… whew. I’ve never had a year like it. It was both terrible and amazing lol. Every day I thank Jehovah because I know he’s the only reason I made it through.

So what’s new? Honestly not much on the biz front.

2024 was a slow year for many reasons, but I wasn’t mad at all. It gave me time to regroup, recalibrate, and refocus on the important things. Honestly I don’t have expectations that 2025 will be much different given how this economy is looking, but I’m going to keep doing what served me so well last year- relying on Jehovah because I definitely can’t do it without him.

I’m still managing my mental ups and downs, but I’ve been finding it “easier” lean into how my brain operates vs trying to fight against it. I actually plan to talk a little more about that another time cuz I do have more to share on this, but I don’t want to make this post too long.

I just wanted to touch base… I’m here!

And! I’ve actually been finding it a little easier to show up online because I have been showing up for myself in real life. What a concept lol.

So if you’re on the gram, you may have seen this already, but if not I’m happy to share it with you!

I was featured on my friend’s podcast, Guilty Privilege! My episode came out a few months ago, but I never got a chance to share it here!

I'm soo proud of how it turned out! When I tell you almost everything that could, went wrong behind the scenes 😩 To mention a few- I was getting over being sick for a month so my voice and throat were not really up to par, my flight that morning was delayed, AND I somehow I tweaked my back the night before 🥴

Not to mention the fact that I had never done a video podcast before… I felt like I was being held together with scotch tape 😭 Given that, I really didn’t know how things would turn out even though I knew I gave the best I had. So when I say I’m proud of this, I really mean it.

We chatted about all the things from how best to prepare for a photo session, my approach to photographing women, being a black woman photographer, my love of light, how I manage my mental health and entrepreneurship- all the things! 

 Check out our episode and let me know what you think! 

Well this update ran a little longer than planned, but when it’s been a year I guess I should have expected that 😅

In closing, here’s a mini collage of what the past year looked like- some family time, some friend time, some game time, some work time, some fashion time… a full year lol

Last thing- if you are interested in creating together, the Spring Calendar is currently open with just a couple dates remaining for May & June. Add your name to the waitlist and you’ll get all the deets!

If you made it to the end, I appreciate you 🧡 Let me know how life has been treating you!

Till next time,

-Danni

A transformative Q1 | Washington, DC Lifestyle Photographer

Happy first day of Q2!

How did the first three months of 2024 treat you?

It’s been pretty transformative year already for me. In a number of different ways, but today I want to share one thing I started doing 5 weeks ago that changed my life: walking.

Yep, the thing we do every day lol.

I’ve always wanted to be someone who went for daily walks but never was quite able to make it stick, until recently.

Walking daily absolutely started as a hail mary. I was sitting on my couch feeling terrible and said to myself, “I gotta move”, so I went for a walk.

But this time I kept going. I did it again the next day, and the day after that. Next thing I know, I’d been walking for a week straight! And it felt good to show up for myself this way because depression has made that increasingly difficult over the years.

I have never in my adult life intentionally done any form of daily exercise or consistent movement for this long before, and I'm really proud of myself!

I think what helped this time was lowering my threshold- not having to put on anything fancy or push myself to do a certain distance or intensity. Just throw some clothes on and walk. That’s IT.

Especially on the days things feel heavy. I don’t magically feel better when I get back inside, but I know it has helped because mentally and emotionally things are not AS heavy, and that makes a difference.

It’s been really nice to spend time in nature daily because prior to this, if I wasn’t in a good mental space sometimes I wouldn’t leave the house for days. Now I know I’ll spend at least 20-30 minutes outside moving my body and getting some fresh air.

So what other things have I noticed from walking every day for 5 weeks? I feel better in my body- I move better because I’m not as stiff, and I know that my stamina has increased- I walked 2 miles for the first time a few weeks ago, and just last week, 3!

And this is JUST from walking, I don’t have any strength or stretching routine at present.

I’ve also lost weight. This is being included as an aside because weight loss was not my goal, I just wanted to feel better. I knew that increasing my daily activity would lead to a little weight loss, but my eating has been very poor these past couple months (I haven’t been eating enough) so that plus daily walking has weight sliding off a bit faster than I would like. I don't know how much weight I've lost, but it's enough for it to be noticeable and my clothes definitely fit differently. Hopefully things will stabilize a bit once my eating gets back to normal.

Beyond that, I’m just really grateful to be actively proving to myself that baby steps are worth it.

I KNOW that, but it’s always been hard for me. I always want to see big changes to feel like I’m making progress, but those aren’t sustainable. Walking every day has shown me that I can show up for myself, little by little each day and it does make a difference 🥹

So what now? I’m gonna keep walking lol.

And I’ll keep sharing as well. I started sharing my daily walks on the gram and had some really nice and encouraging convos with folks! I’m on a slight social media break at the moment, so I hope to do a bit more sharing here on the blog and via email.

If you enjoyed today’s post, please leave a comment and let me know!

Jess Gray | Washington, DC Lifestyle Photographer

A quick look through my archive told me that it’s been 7 years since I last shared a full session on the blog 😳

I’m not even sure why I looked because I knew it had been forever lol. Anyway, my goal to bring this blog back to life means that I’ll be sharing more so let’s get to it!

Spring is on the horizon and I have lots of beautiful photos for you as we lead up to it🌿

Let’s kick things off with this lovely brand session with my friend Jess Gray!

Jess is a wellness and self care guide, mindfulness coach, and curator of joyful experiences. I was thrilled to capture these portraits for her this past spring because she has such a calm and radiant spirit; it was a real joy to capture that in photo form 💚

Note: Although the photos below are displayed in a collage, you can interact with them! Click any photo to enlarge and scroll through the set :)

After our session, I realized that it had been 11 years since we first shot together! Check out a few snaps from our first shoot in 2012:

Doing these comparisons really makes me smile because it’s such an honor to document these moments in time and see not only the growth in my artistry but that of my subject too 🧡

Thanks for trusting me Jess!

The Q2 calendar opens in just a few weeks and I would love to create with you this coming Spring!

Booking takes place exclusively via waitlist so if you’d like to work together, be sure to add your name below:

Don't worry, it's not like joining a line- just a streamlined process :) After sign up, you'll receive a confirmation email with additional info.

In the meantime, keep up with Jess on the gram to learn more about her wellness offerings and community events!