welcome

My husband captured this moment at the wedding we shot last weekend. I’ve looked at it about 50 times in the past 24 hours and I have teared up every.single.time.

One of the only fun parts of editing is “surprise photos.” When I edit the photos I have personally shot, I pretty much remember every image I took. Or I am at least reminded of it when I see it. But when you have a second shooter who just hands over their images at the end of a night, all of a sudden you have the gift of being surprised.

I go to church with Henry and Mary. 

These are selfless people of faith. They waited for this precious gift, this lovely baby boy for over a year and a half. And they did it with patience. But not without struggle.

Tiffany is a poet. Every once in a great while, she stands up at church and reads something she wrote. They are far and away my favorite Sundays. But it only happens once or twice a year.

Kendyl and I have been having lengthy conversations about her organization, NomoGaia, since I moved to Colorado in 2011. For a long time, I just understood it as her traveling the world and advocating for human rights. She would tell me about specific, politically charged projects and I would stop her every couple sentences to have her define a word or explain an event. She always spoke so passionately, but I was always overwhelmed by her knowledge. 

There are some kinds of news that you wish you could just whisper. It might be the most exciting thing in the whole world, maybe a huge personal achievement. But that’s it: when it’s personal, 500 words just don’t seem adequate. I wish I could just whisper to you, “Hey, wanna see this thing I did?” And then I would like to hover over your shoulder creepily and watch your reaction to see what makes sense to you and what doesn’t, what you like and what you don’t. But hitting the publish button, releasing this beast to the world, sitting back, and just waiting? Ugh…radio silence. It’s terrifying. 

Holly, the lone, beautiful lady in these photos, is a dear friend of mine. She has the unusual and unbelievably demanding job of living with four boys. Well, three boys and a man. A man who asked if I could make him look like Tom Cruise.

(Josh, you don’t need to look like Tom Cruise. Ya look great.)