I love shooting senior portraits in the fall, especially if it means hiking through the woods in order to best take advantage of the leaves… and climbing on top of bridges… and over waterfalls… well. We wanted to make sure we got interesting shots, and I think we lived up to that!

Congrats Isaiah, best of luck for the rest of your year!

We took a lovely sunny evening with the last of the fall leaves to take her senior portraits at the park. Emily had a lot of cool outfits & ideas, we definitely had a good time. Of course we get the standard yearbook shots, but I love when seniors bring outfits & ideas that really represent their personalities and interests- it gives us a chance for really unique portraits.

Emily hopes to go to Gettysburg College to major in history. (Yeah, I’m a little jealous.) That’s such a great opportunity. Congrats Emily, and good luck in all of the adventures still ahead of you!

Emily & Scott are getting married this September in the Cranberry area, and if the couple of hours I spent with them are anything to go by, it’s going to be a fantastic time.  Many thanks to them for fitting me into their busy return home & I am definitely looking forward to September.

These next two weeks are going to go by fast, so look for wedding photos soon!

Alisa & Luke are such an adorable couple, and so easy to photograph. They’re such a good example of how you don’t have to know how to model or even what do in front of a camera… you just have to be comfortable.  They have this great little look they give each other, this private, happy smile, and there aren’t even words for it. Just adorable.  I’m really looking forward to their wedding this fall!

To say that we were going for nontraditional senior portraits might be putting it mildly. As for the accordion? He’ll tell you it’s my fault, but I don’t know. I may or may not have been responsible for setting him up with an amazing accordion teacher one day. But it’s absolutely not my fault that he took like two classes and and wound being stupidly good at it. That accordion actually has a history to it- it was my great-grandfather’s, who played it at my parent’s wedding; Ian worked at it & played it at my brother’s wedding last year. Good stuff. And everyone knows that the accordion is the sexiest instrument alive, anyways.

Pittsburgh had snow the day we left on the nine hour drive- and it was seventy degrees in Kitty Hawk.  The ocean was a little too cold for swimming, but that didn’t stop us from cramming in idle hours sitting on the beach, burying our feet in sand… The rest of the time was yoga & rolling down the immense dunes, lots of good food, giggling like teenagers, and jumping on the hotel beds. Yeah… sometimes I’m surprised we’re allowed in hotel rooms, too.

To be honest, I’ve always been one of those embittered northerners who wouldn’t dream of turning snowbird. But now, I’m starting to see the appeal in beach houses…  I can dream, right? Because somewhere, it still looks like this:

We snuck in a lovely engagement portrait session at sunset at the Strip District this past week… more to come. :)

Ashley and Addison contacted me through Oplove early this fall. At that time, Addison was in Iraq and Ashley was expecting their first child. There is one thing I’ve learned shooting weddings, and that working with Oplove has brought home even more.   It’s often humbling, and sometimes even a little intimidating, knowing how much these photos can mean. I really can’t tell you how much of an honor it is for me, the way these families welcome me into their lives even just for a few hours, to try to capture the things that are most important to them.

So somewhere in the end of the two weeks that Addison had at home, between the birth of their first child and Thanksgiving and fitting in all the family affairs, we squeezed in an hour at the William Penn Omni Hotel in Pittsburgh to get a few portraits.

Addison has this great smile that lights up his whole face and a comical list of poses that looked like they came straight from GQ.  Ashley is calm and strong and beautiful, mama zen. And little Aidan, of course, is absolutely adorable, and so loved.  We had a lovely time wandering around the hotel, misplacing the furniture, exploring the streets outside.

We were in front of the hotel, shooting with the buildings and city streets behid us. Addison leaned against the wall, his wife pressing into his arms for a kiss. Suddenly, the cab driver in the background stuck his head out and laughed, “Now that’s some World War II shit right there!”

Yessir, yes it is.

Addison is back in Iraq for now, although he will be returning to his wife and son in February.  Best wishes to he & his family, and a safe return home!

Breanne & Will are going to get married next month at Armstrong Farms. The venue is gorgeous, and even from our phone conversations, I knew we’d get along. I was already looking forward to the wedding. Now that I’ve had a chance to actually meet them, I am even more excited. They’re gorgeous, and laid back, and so much fun. We had a really great time running around Oakland- the Cathedral of Learning, wandering through Schenley Park, riding the carousel, and posing with nearly every dinosaur we found. We did skip the tight-rope walking though, maybe next time.

In the meantime, I wanted to share some of my favorites from the afternoon.