Reflecting on 2025
- Dina Kharag
- Dec 31, 2025
- 4 min read
As this year comes to a close, I stop to think about my journey into becoming a more professional photographer.
Firstly, I show gratitude to the chances and challenges I received to grow myself in my photography. Within the newborn photographer position, I have received the wonderful opportunity to do newborn photography in a postpartum setting. This is something I have never done before, but I took the chance because I wanted to gain the skills to do portraiture photography. At the same time, I developed this skill that has aided children and families in the NICU hospital setting. In my other position, as a child life specialist, I have been able to provide additional services to children and families when I provide bereavement and palliative care services, specifically bereavement photography. Unfortunately, due to the confidentiality of the clients and working as a contractor for the newborn photography position, I don't have any photos to share on my website.
Nonetheless, I was able to provide additional services and grow my skills in other ways, where I am able to display my work on this website. This includes couples photography, small event photography, and an at-home newborn session. With the permission of each client, I have been able to keep these photos and have turned them into part of my portfolio to showcase my talents to future clients. If you're interested, you can send me a message, and I'll share it. Overall, I am happy with the progress I have made and hope to keep furthering this trajectory.
In addition to this professional work, I was excited that I took more risks with showcasing my art throughout the community. Huge thanks to the co-op in San Francisco, Syzygy, I got comfortable with creating items to sell, including bookmarks, postcards, and prints. I always wanted to find a way to make something tangible with my photographs, to release them from my camera and computer, into something people would want to take home. My hope is for people to see my photos as a passion and not something that I did for the sake of monetary value. Even if it's not a painting I worked months on, it's still my artwork, and I would enjoy it if someone wanted a piece to have and keep forever.
Some examples of what I created this year.
This event was also great for me to receive feedback from the community at large. I received a lot of positive feedback, which only led me to continue to forge a path to continue to expand myself.
This led to eventually submitting my artwork to varying contests and competitions. There were some that I got accepted and shown to the public, while others I got quietly denied. It has been a rollercoaster to navigate this landscape of trying and taking risks, but I am grateful for the chances to just try.
One contest that I submitted for and never thought I would have the chance to win is the Japantenna "Old and New" competition. I found out about this contest at the last minute, through a friend, and submitted my entry without a second thought. However, somehow, my art not only got accepted, but two were chosen (one for the marketing and the other for the actual contest)!
The one chosen for the contest can still be seen in the San Francisco Japantown's Welcome Center.
Another exciting contest win I had was when I learned about SF Photoworks, a local company that processes film and digital photos, which had a submission opening for their zine with the theme High/Low. They requested 5 photos to be submitted for one of the themes. I decided to focus on the low theme as I know I had lots of photos for the high theme, but I wanted to challenge myself while focusing on my best photos for this particular theme. This led to these photos picked as well as providing this description:
"I picked these photos as I wanted to showcase the emotion of feeling low in different contexts: size, politics, isolation, fear of spiders, and death."
Copies of the zine are still available if interested. The zine showcases some amazing, talented photographers, and I am still amazed I can stand alongside all of them.
And as I am writing this blog, I am still submitting to more contests, local and international. Stay tuned for updates!
Last, but certainly not least, I completed a personal project to surprise my two closest friends by creating my first travel book about our trip to the Netherlands. This was an idea I was developing for a year, as I wanted to encapsulate our trip in a way that was more interactive than a photo album. This led to searching the internet for a book that fit my needs while staying within my personal budget. I ended up using Printique as I liked how customizable the pages and book could be, from the book size, materials, design, and so much more. Here's the final result:
Thank you for taking a look and walking down memory lane with me. Til next year!
Wishing you all a happy New Year! :)
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