Rae | Sleeping Bear Dunes, Michigan | Adventure

I traveled up to Michigan to photograph a wedding a couple weekends ago, and I got to see friends who I haven't seen in almost 7 years. It was an incredible reunion, and the wedding was so beautiful. After, I rented a car and traveled to Northern Michigan and stayed in a little hostel with Rae, who I had met in Virginia at a dance class last year. She moved up to Michigan and has been going to school working towards her masters, while also modeling! I had never been to Michigan before, and so I had no idea what to expect. These dunes, I definitely did not expect these. This was one of the, hands down, coolest experiences of my life. Hiking through woods to find myself at the top of an incredible dune. A sign warning that the quick hike down the dune would result in over 2 hours back up, or a high fee for a rescue. So, we didn't risk it. But we hiked through more forest and sands and found ourselves at even more dunes that we explored. To get back to the trail, you run recklessly down the sand into cool, tall trees. The next morning Rae and I returned, waking up at 4:30 so we could get lost a little, but still end up seeing a glorious sunrise. One of the most exhausting, incredible days of my life. I can't wait to go back. 

Thank you Rae for throwing yourself around these dunes. You're are truly badass. 

Ashley | Mountain Top Yoga Portraits | Shenandoah National Park

“Step outside, time to step outside

House on fire, leave it all behind you
Living life, feeding appetites
Stayed through every hard stop, every go
Being bland
Breathing half the time

House on fire, leave it all behind you
Dark as night, let the lightning guide you

Step outside, time to step outside.”

— José González

If you're in Virginia, you know of the insane weather we've been having. Beautiful in the 60's during the week, freezing (literally) on the weekend. When Ashley & I first scheduled her photo shoot, it was for a Saturday that was going to be 35 degrees out. We decided to postpone - the next date we picked, as we got closer, we realized it was going to be reaching 75. It was absolutely perfect. I was awake at 4:30am out of excitement. The hike to Mary's Rock was more strenuous than we remembered from the last time, but when we got to the top, we had the whole mountain to ourselves. We took a breather, and both had to figure out together how to "pose" for a yoga shoot. By the time we were finishing up, we saw our first hikers, and as we made our way down it was group after group making their way up. We had a whole hour to ourselves in the Shenandoah National Park, with an incredible view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was such a beautiful & fun experience, and I'm so thrilled to share these with you.


Ashley has just finished her training to become a certified yoga teacher! She will be starting an Instagram account where she will be posting pictures & videos of her new journey!

Please give her a follow, I know you'll love her as much as I do. I got to take an hour and a half class taught by her and it was so perfect. She's worked so hard to get here, but it seems so natural.

@letthelightinyoga

Hannah | Snowy Lake Arrowhead Portraits

“Don’t leave love there’s a storm above. Don’t leave love.”

Hannah! I had never met Hannah before this portrait session, but we were friends on Facebook because of mutual friends, and I had asked her a couple months back if she would like to do a photo shoot together. It took a couple months of figuring schedules, and finally when we set a date, it snowed. So we postponed by one more day, and here we were. It was SO windy. We could only stay out for 30 minutes, our hands were so frozen. She was a serious champ, dealing with this freezing weather and my cold stuttering. I'm so happy that our schedules didn't work out until recently, because I've only really discovered this location for photography in the last couple weeks, and it was perfect for this shoot.

After only taking pictures for 30 minutes, we needed to warm up so we went out for chai (because this local coffee shop seriously has the best chai in the whole world) and talked for 2 hours until the shop closed. I wish I could do that after every photo shoot and get to know my clients this way.

Ever since I was young I would hear a song that would put an image in my head, and that's when I would start going out to take self portraits. Now, whenever I have a photo shoot, I will listen to certain songs that I think will fit the vibe, either on the way there or while photographing, and then again while I'm editing.

I've decided to start including these songs with my blog posts, so if you'd like to listen along you definitely should.