Kelly+Steven // Joshua Tree National Park

You guyyyys! It has always been a dream of mine to visit Joshua Tree National Park because I’m the world’s biggest U2 dork. And yes, I’m aware that the actual Joshua Tree where Anton Corbijn (one of my favorite photographers) took the famous photos of Bono and Co. near is no longer living, and yes, I’m also aware that this was in the Mojave Desert as opposed to the national park, but I don’t care… it’s still been at the top of my travel list for a long time. So the day after our Santa Paula wedding, we drove all the way over to Joshua Tree. Unfortunately, we picked the one day that it rains nonstop in the desert. On the way the park, we texted back and forth with our beloved clients Kelly and Steven (whom you may remember from their Sutherland wedding back in NC!) and tried to decide what to do. It wasn’t just kinda sprinkling, it was pouring. We could take pictures there, but chances are that we probably wouldn’t be able to. But, we decided to meet anyway. At the very least, we could drive around and discuss The Walking Dead together.

Kelly and Steven live near Los Angeles now, but we hope to get them back in NC someday because they’re awesome. And we are so, so thankful that they came out to Joshua Tree to take photos with us, and we were glad to see them and catch up! And while we were all hoping for that beloved desert sunshine, we were left with a thick blanket of clouds… but! At least the rain did miraculously clear up (hooray!!) and we were able to photograph them chilling around the desert! And when I say chilling, I mean chilling, because it was also quite cold (this was not the desert weather I was anticipating). But despite the clouds and the cold, we had a brilliant time, and the park is every bit as beautiful as I expected it to be. We also saw a few desert bunnies (awww) and I listened to U2’s The Joshua Tree the whole time like a giant nerd and it felt wonderful. Couldn’t be more thankful or happy to have photography be my job and to have wonderful clients who live all over the world who treat us like old friends. Thank you, Kelly and Steven! So glad I got to see this place.

Switzerland+Italy // Personal Post.

Back in April we shot a ridiculously fabulous wedding in Positano, Italy and super fun Vespa-filled engagement session in Rome. Prior to those shoots, we traveled around a bit in Switzerland and Italy for two weeks and took a bunch of pictures (and 24 hours in London). It seems like forever ago. 2016 was just beginning to suck then. We found out that Prince had died while watching the news at the train station in Venice around midnight. I also still had longer dark hair (it’s currently about three inches long and blonde or purple depending on which day you see me), England was still part of the EU, and Toblerone still had all of its chocolate (thank goodness). So let’s take a trip down our European memory lane back to the beginning of 2016 when we were blissfully unaware of the horrors that awaited us.

Places pictured: Zürich, Bern, Lauterbrunnen, Interlaken, Zermatt, Montreux, Venice, Rome, Pompeii, Positano, London.