When I started Janice Crago Photography, I knew I wasn’t doing it alone.
There have been people beside me from the very beginning. My husband, who has watched me turn our house upside down with backdrops, props, camera equipment and whatever photography idea I’ve dreamed up next. My kids, who encourage me, help me and listen to me talk about sessions and photographs probably more than they ever expected to.
My friends have shared posts, celebrated the wins, listened to the frustrations and reminded me that they believe in what I’m building.
And my dad was my biggest fan.
He believed in me in that wonderful way dads sometimes do—where whatever you’re doing is automatically something worth being proud of because you’re the one doing it. I wish more than I can say that he could see what Janice Crago Photography has become. There are so many moments when I still want to tell him what happened, show him a photograph or hear what he thinks.
Those are the people you expect to be in your corner. They know you. They love you. They have a history with you.
But every once in a while, life gives you someone you weren’t expecting.
You meet someone because she books a photo session. You photograph her family. You talk about ideas. You plan things together. And somewhere along the way, she becomes more than someone who once stood in front of your camera.
She becomes someone whose opinion you genuinely treasure. Someone who notices what you’re doing. Someone who comments on your work even when the photographs aren’t of her family. Someone who gets excited about your ideas, encourages you when you try something new and takes a few seconds out of her day to leave words that probably seem very small to her—but don’t feel small to you at all.
She is probably reading this with no idea it’s her I’m talking about.
I’m not sure she has any idea how many times one of her comments has made me smile or how much I appreciate the way she cheers me on.
Building something of your own can be exciting, exhausting, scary and incredibly rewarding—sometimes all in the same day. You second-guess yourself. You wonder whether an idea is going to work. You put a little piece of yourself out there every time you share something you’ve created.
And then someone says, I see what you’re doing. I like it. Keep going.
Sometimes that person has loved you your entire life. And sometimes you meet her at a photo shoot.
Both kinds matter.
So to my husband, my kids, my family, my friends, and to my dad, who will forever be my biggest fan—thank you for being part of every step that brought me here.
And to Jasmine: thank you for becoming one of those completely unexpected people in my corner. You probably didn’t know you were doing it, which somehow makes it mean even more.
I hope everyone who takes a chance on something they love has a Jasmine.
And I’m very grateful that I found mine.
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