Hi, I’m Tanya.
I’ve had a camera in my hands for more than twenty years, but photography has never really been about the camera for me.
It’s about noticing.
The way someone reaches for the person they love without thinking about it. The laugh that happens between the photos you thought you were taking. Weathered hands. A familiar kitchen. The light coming through an old window. A stretch of road that makes you pull over because something about it feels worth remembering.
Those are the things I’m drawn to.
I’ve photographed people and places through a lot of different versions of my own life, and somewhere along the way, my work got quieter. So did I.
For the past six years, I’ve lived in the desert, where there’s a whole lot of space and not much competing for your attention. It changed me. I stopped feeling like everything needed to be bigger, busier, or perfectly put together to be beautiful.
Turns out, most of the good stuff is already there.
I’m in my 40s now, and I think I understand my photography better than I ever have. I’m less interested in perfection and much more interested in what feels true. Real connection. Ordinary days. People as they actually are. Places with history written into them. The little pieces of a life that don’t seem important until one day, they are.
I’m a wife, a small business owner, a traveler, a dog and cat mom, and a person who will absolutely fall behind on a walk because I stopped to photograph something everyone else passed right by.
I believe everyone deserves to exist in photographs without having to become someone else first. Every family. Every couple. Every age. Every body. Every background. Every kind of love.
You are welcome here.
A Lens Toward Home is where all of those pieces come together. Photography, film, people, places, small businesses, travel, and the stories we leave behind.
Because I don’t think a meaningful life is made entirely of milestones.
Most of it happens in between them.
And I want to remember that part, too.
— Tanya