It's the memories...
Let’s be honest: our lives don’t look like the posed perfection of a department store portrait session. Life is messy, beautiful, unpredictable — it’s laughter in the chaos, quiet connection in the everyday, and the small moments that don’t follow a script.
Some of my favorite photos from my own life aren’t polished or perfect. They’re the ones where someone is caught mid-laugh, hair wild, eyes crinkled with joy — where you can feel something real.
In fact, one of my most loved images of myself is from when I was around twelve. I was out on the farm, in the wind, my unbrushed hair blowing across my face. I was standing in a pasture with one of my farm animals. I didn’t look “camera-ready,” - I was in ragged shorts and an old sweatshirt - but that photo captured the essence of who I was in that season: untamed, curious, and fully in my element.
That photo never made it onto the wall. Very few did.
We had a formal JCPenney portrait from when I was a baby, which was before both of my younger siblings were born. Another stiff, “church clothes” shot when I was in middle school. But those images didn’t tell our family story. They didn’t show the dynamics, the energy, the love — the real, raw beauty of who we were together.
And I think that’s what’s stayed with me.
Because now, when I’m behind the camera, I don’t just see faces. I see relationships. I see micro-moments of connection. I see the way your toddler reaches for your hand without thinking, the way your partner looks at you when you’re not looking, the way your laughter fills the space around you.
That’s what I want to capture. Not the perfectly posed version of you — but the truthful, joyful, soulful one. The version that deserves to be remembered.
Because when your artwork reflects the real relationships in your life, it does more than decorate a wall — it brings you back to those moments, again and again. The stories. The emotions. The love.
And that’s what I believe my clients deserve: not just a record of what your faces looked like, but a way to return to who you were — who you are — in the moments that matter most.
