A few days ago, I was driving around Dallas. We were about 5 minutes from our destination. I had just pulled out of one of those incredible, multi-layered highway interchanges when, low and behold, straight in front of us was this strange natural phenomenon in the sky! Awe-struck, I pulled over on the shoulder, grabbed my camera, and ran into the brush and freshly plowed field beside the road in my dress shoes, suit pants, and white shirt to capture it before it disappeared!

This is often what landscape photography is like for me. I don’t know what drives me to do it. But I just love it! And sometimes I’ll do crazy things for it. There’s something so thrilling and wonderful about seeing beautiful or interesting things, and I just have this unceasing desire to go out and capture it. To patiently harvest it. To package it up neatly in a little, light-tight box. And then to take it home and put it in my digital treasure chest. I just can’t help but love landscape photography.

And because I keep adding more and more nuggets to my treasure chest, I feel like I have to do something with them! So that’s one of the reasons I started making calendars.

But a calendar with just pretty pictures is not special enough. Adding some Scripture gives them an extra layer of meaning. And then, add to that lyrics from great Christian hymns, and you get a truly unique blend. All combined—Scripture, hymns, and pretty photos with personal stories behind them—I hope it makes a unique calendar unlike any other.

And today, I’m excited to announce that the Lenspiration 2026 Calendar is now available for pre-ordering! With that in mind, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share with you how I came about choosing the theme for the calendar and how it all came together in preparation for today’s launch.

Choosing the Theme

Having received y’alls help with choosing which photos to put into the calendar via the survey, the next step was to determine what the theme would be!

I have a place where I’ll jot down notes throughout the year when various hymns inspire me or when I think of calendar-theme ideas. But this year, before referencing that source, I happened to run across some thought-provoking notes in my Bible. I’ve been reading through the Psalms recently, taking the time to study and better understand each one. And when I came to Psalm 15, I noticed something interesting:

Chapter 15 lists 11 different characteristics of a person who is abiding in God’s presence. With the final statement in the last verse summarizing the whole list (“He that doeth these things shall never be moved.”), I thought this whole chapter would be super easy to turn into a 12-part calendar theme!

I proposed the idea of a “Psalm 15” theme to Julianna. Looking at the list of 11 characteristics, we both thought it would be challenging to find hymns that would correlate. But, what if we gave it a try?

Choosing the Hymns

Even though it wasn’t easy to find matching hymns, I loved the whole project because it got us both meditating on the verses of Psalm 15! What does it mean when it says, “. . . he honoureth them that fear the Lord.”? What is God getting at when He says, “. . . nor taketh reward against the innocent.”? Is there actually a hymn out there that even remotely relates to “He putteth not out his money to usury”?!

The mental gymnastics were great! And we were up till midnight brainstorming more than once. But the further we got, the more exciting it became to see everything come together.

Finalizing the Photographs

Having the Psalm 15 theme established and a bunch of great hymns picked out, it was time to lay it all out in the calendar with the photographs! From the survey, there were 6 main photos I knew I wanted to use in this calendar. So I started by plugging those into months that seemed to match both the season and previously established hymns and verses.

Some pairs naturally fit together without any concern for mismatching, like the month of April.

The verse, hymn, and photograph work together well. And even though the image was taken in early August, it still worked nicely for the spring season.

Other pairs not only naturally fit together, but matched as though they were intended to go together! Like the month of October.

A photo of a lighthouse fit perfectly with the hymn “Stepping in the Light”!

Then, of course, there were the pairs that didn’t match too well . . . at least, for starters. The following photograph of the dusting of snow on the mountains was one I was originally going to use for the month of February. But when I read the hymn lyrics for the month of March, I thought the mountain photo would be a fantastic fit:

“There is never a day so deary,
there is never a night so long,
but the soul that is trusting in Jesus
will somewhere find a song.”

The spot of sunlight shining on the dark mountain scene was illustrative of the song in the soul of one trusting in Jesus in dark times. I had to move that photo over to March!

But would the photo I had originally lined up for March work for the month of February? The hymn lyrics for February were:

“Living for Jesus Who died in my place,
Bearing on Calv’ry my sin and disgrace;
Such love constrains me to answer His call,
Follow His leading and give Him my all.”

The photo I was going to use for March was a bridge. Follow His leading? The cross of Calv’ry is often illustrated as a bridge across the gulf of sin, right? This photo could work for February!

But I had some hesitations about swapping the two photos. The bridge photo really did look more like a March photo than a February photo. Would it make sense for the February photo to be without snow, and then the March with snow? I deliberated over this for a long time. Which is more important, the photo matching the the hymn or the season?

Then I started to think about what the seasons might be like in Colorado, where the mountain photo was taken. In February, everything would be under deep snow, right? This photo was obviously showing a light snow. Perhaps, for that geographical location, it would actually fit better for March anyway, and not February? Truth be told, the photo was taken after a crazy snowstorm in May . . .

That was what I needed. I would make the bridge February, and the mountain March!

Wrapping It Up

After plugging in the first 6 photos, I proceeded to pull matching photos from my portfolio to fill in the rest of the months.

“Channels only, blessed Master,
But with all Thy wondrous pow’r
Flowing through us, Thou canst use us
Every day and every hour.”

And thus the 12 photos for the 2026 Calendar were chosen!

Want to see all 12?! You can go see them all now at www.lenspiration.com/original.

Something NEW This Year

I decided to run a special discount at launch this year. And a pretty crazy one too! Here it is:

The first 10 customers to order any quantity of Original or Personalized 2026 Calendars get 20% off the entire Lenspiration store for the rest of 2025! (Cannot be combined with other discounts or offers.)

Everything. From Lenspiration core curriculum, to monthly photo coaching webinars, eBooks, photography gifts like lens mugs and bumper stickers, and more! Now’s your chance to enjoy 20% off the Store for the rest of the year!

Click here to order your 2026 Calendars now.

In Conclusion

And now, for those of you who made it to the end of the post, here’s a fun little behind-the-scenes tidbit about the strange phenomenon I saw while driving around Dallas.

Were you like me and asked yourself “what on earth caused it?!”

Well, here’s what was in the sky looking the opposite direction:

Evidently, the giant cumulous cloud blocked the sunlight in such a way that it caused a large triangular shadow in the sky on the opposite horizon. I had never seen anything like it before, but a local told me afterward that this phenomenon isn’t necessarily rare. I guess I just haven’t spent enough time in Texas. 🙂

Anyway, hope you enjoy looking at the new calendar and I’ll look forward to sharing more behind-the-scenes stories relating to the calendar here on the blog in the future!