Up-and-coming Canadian photographer Ashley Barker spent her formative years moving around the Canadian West. Now, she has taken her travels worldwide, camera in hand. Her formidable skills with artificial light have led her to pack around immense amounts of flash gear, but the results are worth it–both in makeshift hotel room portrait studios and the Japanese backcountry.

This year, I lived. It’s the first full year I didn’t have to scrub the burnt grime off the bottom of a restaurant’s baking sheet, change someone else’s kid’s dirty diapers (with the exception of my beautiful nephew Brayden), or pour drinks for people until they’re sloppy drunk and hanging off the end of the bar. This year I traded in my assortment of small baskets for one big one and tossed in all the eggs.

I won’t be looking back; photography is my life, my job and my dream. Not a day goes by that I’m not thinking about it…
Subscribe to see the entire piece.