Instagram story viewer> @yanpalmer> Posts

Anna (YAN) Palmer

@yanpalmer

68.2K

followers

4327

following

she/her/theybe
artist/educator, many mediums.
•photographer•writer•speaker•podcaster
yanpalmer.com

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Tell yo' kids! Tell yo' wife! Yan is coming to town. 🤠📸

Ever wanted to make photos together? Swipe right to see my current travel locations.

Utah folks, email me for local rates.

Ready to book?
Follow the link in my bio.
Not ready but almost?
I got you.
Email me your questions. by @yanpalmer

188

31

4 months ago

Dear Artist,

Maybe it's true. Maybe it's what I need to hear. Maybe it's what you need to hear. Maybe it's all of it, and belief makes each part so.

If you want to receive yanpennings, my weekly "newsletter," please sign up via the link in my bio. by @yanpalmer

770

26

3 years ago

Once upon a time, my pal @summer_murdock sent myself and @abjolley a link to a music festival with a location (@arcosanti_arizona 1970's arcology everything 🌀) and a talent line up I LEGITIMATELY COULD NOT BELIEVE.

Said lineup included my top two favorite living musicians in one weekend (@adriannelenker + @mrcameron_winter of @geesebandnyc) , plus many more I'd been scoping (STALKING) from afar. The verdict? ABSO-friggen-how could i not-LUTELY.

So i told myself my ticket was a bday gift (Oct 25, cough-cough) and spent some money i arguably did not have...

What i wanna tell you about @experienceform 2026, which had to unexpectedly cancel day three due to rain and wind and mud is - WORTH EVERY PENNY AND MORE.

Beyond the musical magic, at one point, I was walking around the stunning @arcosanti_arizona grounds, lost per usual and asked the only other human i could see to help me find the cafe. He was chatting kindly to me and walking me to said cafe when i noticed his lanyard. So i said,

"Oh, what's your role at this festival?"

And he said,

"I actually founded it 12 years ago." 😮

Turns out, THE @zach.tet was taking the time to personally show me the way to the Arcosanti cafe.

Before you think that means I'm cool (i am not), you should know that's just the level of presence, care, intimacy, and connection all throughout the event.

I wept, i saw bells, i threw up, approached strangers with cool shoes, danced,made friends with the only baby i saw + her mama, pretended Cameron winter was making eye contact directly with my friends and me, was healed by the drum song sounds of @taranit_up, sat in the rain to hear @annahstasia, was transcended for the first time as a group by @kamasiwashington and MORE.

To be honest, i had to discipline myself to pull out my phone. So forgive me if the captures here don't quite do it all justice. I just gotta say thanks to such intricate, true and heart centered beauty. It was a rare and thoughtful desert gift in an increasingly mindless, metric driven yet still stunning world.

Thank you @experienceform team, thank you to the artists, thank you to @arcosanti_arizona and the land. I hope to come back again and again. by @yanpalmer

332

39

3 days ago

Once an odd, wise woman and friend (but the kind you're almost never in touch with), named Sara called me "Opposite Day." I'd spent the whole day mentoring her and about a year later she confessed,

"I didn't understand a single word you said that day. But about a year later, it suddenly all made sense."

It can be that way. Change happening over night, except it's not over night. It's been growing in the dark soil for months and months, slowly turning in the earth, steadily making its way toward the light. And then one morning, what seems a revelation; the earth splits. The green shoots. Hardly anyone notices, or saw it coming exactly--but all is different. Turned over and upside down until it's aimed right. New and old at once. Finally fresh and a little bit better.

That may be a good image to hold onto right now for this world.

What you see here is one of my favorite photos ever taken of me by the talented and steadily luminous @kelli.rad. She took it over multiple screens, thru FaceTime, can you believe that?

Can you further believe I read a poet as ancient and great as Rumi each morning, and probably not even the best translation, also thru a screen because I keep him on my phone as I need him with me wherever I go?

That now, I also I read him to my 16 year old son, Shiloh in the mornings too, before he wakes up? While our dog Tuesday licks the salty sleep off Shiloh's arms? Shiloh can probably only feel Tuesday and I thru his half dreams, but I like to think it's getting into the soil, turning him over, nourishing him until he's ready to break ground.

Sigh. My boy. Gentle like Rumi writes here. A gentle I'm determined to help preserve and cultivate as the kind of man who makes us all proud. We need more of those, right? Shy but not. Gentle but strong at once.

Magic.

(another sigh)

I've learned a lotta tricks, from whoever would teach me- I've also taught many of them to myself. Albeit a little more aggressively at times than I intended. But despite all appearances, I'm shy (and not shy) to my core. I am an excited, upside down mountain.

May every night bird start singing.

Thanks for the zillionth time, Rumi,

Opposite Day by @yanpalmer

68

2

10 days ago

Not me thinking I was going to send out 2027 photo session travel dates and locations out on Sunday, then deciding I desperately needed to update my website first.

I was still trying to decide if summer was truly over, when it occurred to me that fall was zooming by. Suddenly, we find ourselves in deliciously mystical, sometimes moody, and often humorous tree vibes. Clearly demo'd here by my delightful photo collaborator, client and friend, the endlessly creative @maryamsalassi (and fam).

I've spent nearly every weekend since Aug in a different city with both my camera and heart cracked wide open by all the things. Especially the bursting, dark horse beauty of the people I'm lucky to photograph.

The good news is that Autumn is practically designed for FEELING and HEALING BB - even if you don't proudly consider yourself to be emotionally sl*tyy, like I do. Either that or RAGING AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT in every bright color, just like the leaves do. 🍃🍂🍁🪾

The bad news, (which I will promptly follow with some more good news since there has been SO MUCH BAD lately), is that my photo prices are going up in 2027. In THIS economy? 😩 Yeahhh, don't we all know the pain?!

So the other good news is that you can still get my 2026 photo prices if you act fast. I'm sending my dates and location to my waiting list first. If you wanna grab a spot when it's hot off the press, dm or comment me your email pronto, pretty please.

If not, I still encourage you ALL to leave your fav line of poetry in the comments. Did I mention it's my birthday month? That means I shamelessly ask for poetry, jokes, and compliments all the way until Oct 31st.

*photos on film by me taken in the Bay Area. Scanned and developed by pals at @indiefilmlab taken in San Francisco, California by @yanpalmer

278

18

12 days ago

Walk and Talks with Yanzee. Topics include: HLP, yarn, 2027 photo sessions, robots, space and time, YAHTZEE, keeping it s*xy for the algorithm, nobody knows and lastly - minivan safety.

Come back soon to see what's in it for you. by @yanpalmer

149

37

25 days ago

An honour to witness and capture your beauty, inside & out ❤️ by @yanpalmer

323

11

a month ago

BEHOLD: some of the film photos I co created with my clients last month. Scanned and developed by @indiefilmlab

Sometimes I've got more words than I know what to do with.

Other times I've got none.

Suffice to say, July was the best lucid dream I've ever had. Each encounter felt fated. Each person I got to create with was a teacher and friend. No one knows just when or how the muse decides to speak- I'm just damn grateful -- (and frankly a little fumbly with my camera cuz she's loud and she means business)-- when she does.

Never hurts to be assisted by soul, earth and summer sun.

I also felt I should remind the photographers who I'm trying to nudge to purchase my original TEETHKISS content (on sale for just a little while longer!) that I do in fact, still make photos. Grab TEETHKISS if you're ready to make your photos match your guts. It's worth it.

Link in bio. by @yanpalmer

840

137

2 months ago

Ohhhh...not much, just a little something on witness, beauty, truth, going broke, liberation, madness, listening, the refusal of any box, why I shaved my head and what I've been up to the last several years. 😅

I'm not really great at narrowing things down to a tidy internet post....or anything really. 🙃

Last week, I posted this in my IG stories. So many of you resonated in that human, cathartic, unifying sorta way, I figured this post deserved a permanent place in my grid.

It just took me over one morning, and I couldn't stop writing. I googled who first said "the truth shall set you free," and google's auto ai response said Jesus. 🤣 is that true? Listen, I love Jesus as much as any ex- Mormon, misfit, mountain mystic might-- but is that true???

I hope so. I also hope this text isn't too tiny?? My eyes are getting OLD.

To getting old. To liberation. To beauty. To truth. To living fully alive rather than half or mostly dead.

Sincerely,

the yanagement by @yanpalmer

185

16

2 months ago

Sometimes I don't know how to say what I feel. Then I look up at the sky and think - that. That's exactly how I feel.

All photos here by wonder-kids @summer_murdock and @ryanmuirhead...except one. Lucky me.

*photographed on the traditional territories of the Paiute and Ute nations. by @yanpalmer

2k

68

4 months ago

I'm headed back to Minneapolis to photograph my people (yes, the same, glorious 🧈 beings you see here ) in early October. I met Kadi when she was 17 and Laure soon after. When I get to make with Kadi and Laure, I get to know I am touching a nucleus of beauty and care that nurtures a huge community of mothers, and brings poetic yet sturdy form to what would otherwise be the sheer chaos of emotion and this life.

Time slips through our fingers - all of our fingers and always- but sometimes we catch each other as we pass through. Long enough to mean something. Long enough to be shaped and made real again.

All images shot on film and scanned/developed by @indiefilmlab

Upcoming photo stops include Minneapolis, DC, Colorado Springs, SoCal, the Bay Area, Boise, Ohio, Seattle, Vancouver....and I'm sure a few more I'm forgetting. Not to mention right here at home in Provo, Utah and surrounding areas. Reach out if you want to make something. And email me for specific dates. Or if you're already on my email list, you can peep the dates there. ✨ by @yanpalmer

683

50

5 months ago

Hail Mary Part Two. Beltane Edition. 🪻🔥🌷❤️‍🔥

Limited @marcopoloapp release 😉 of my favorite song written and performed by one of my oldest and dearest, @tripletrance. Just in time for the holiday. Happy May Day Beltane Scorpio Full Moon to those who celebrate. by @yanpalmer

132

4

6 months ago