Yes! I travel.

As a kid, my family moved around quite a bit. When my siblings and I all got older, our family travels started to move outside of the United States. In addition to being able to experience the beauty of other states and countries, I also got to make friends all over the world.

Now as an adult, travel takes a bit more planning with a little one and a dog, but I still love to visit friends, family, and new places. Most recently, my aunt had me down in Arizona to take graduation photos of my cousin Anna.

I won’t lie, escaping the cold, snowy weather of Idaho for some Arizona warmth was certainly an incentive to travel down, but being able to spend time with family doing something I love made my whole month.

The Superstition Mountains in Arizona surrounded by cacti.

While amazing photographers exist all over the world, sometimes it can be tough to find just the right person if your preferred photographer doesn’t live where your event is taking place, especially if you don’t know where to even start looking. Just Google searching ‘North Carolina photographer’ produces almost 18 million search results!

One of my dearest friends from high school asked if I would travel from Idaho to North Carolina for their Asheville wedding ceremony and of course the answer was yes! We’d shot together several times before and she knew my editing style, which can be reassuring when you’re talking about getting pictures of one of the most important days of your life.

A young woman in a white dress poses in three different images. The first, she stands in front of a mountain. The second, in front of bamboo. The third, she stands in the water of a shallow river.

From a photographer’s perspective, traveling for a shoot is an exciting experience that allows me to focus my plans around the schedule and locations of my clients, making it easy to focus entirely on their needs and taking out some of the leg work of planning.

The client generally has a clear vision for what they want to achieve and for me, I love seeing the excitement that comes with being in a dream location capturing beautiful images, for all parties involved, of course.

Being able to be apart of someone’s exciting moments gets my energy flowing and I love making something I know will be cherished for a long time coming.

That’s probably what got me so passionate about photography - allowing others to look back on a time in their life that’s important to them and creating a product they can enjoy in ten, 30, and 50 years.

A young woman with blonde hair poses in six different images. Image one: She is wearing a green sweater, black jeans, and tan boots in front of a mountain. Image two: The woman smiles in a portrait in front of water. Image three: The image is taken from below as the woman closes her eyes while standing in front of bamboo. Image four: She is sitting on a rock in a river wearing a white dress. Image five: A black and white portrait of the woman in front of cacti. Image six: The woman is wearing a green sweater and pink shawl in front of a mountain.

Seeing Anna completely dive into getting her graduation images done and channeling her inner ‘Top Model’ was the best. I’ve seen her grow up from this fun, crazy little kid into a beautiful young woman getting ready to take on the world.

Without a doubt, I’ll always remember getting to share this experience with her and I can’t wait to see what she does in the coming years.