It's been such a treat getting to work with Emilia's family these past several months, so to be able to document her very first birthday party celebration at her grandpa's house in Frenchtown was super special. All sorts of friends and family were there to help Emilia celebrate and the house was decorated to the nines with balloons, pictures and streamers of all sorts to really get the first birthday mood set! Emilia snacked on pineapple and carrots and doled out hugs as birthday guests packed the house in preparation for the party to really get started. Soon it was time for the "Happy Birthday" song to be sung to the birthday girl, and ...
Emily + John :: College Graduation and Couples’ Photos
College graduation is such a time of excitement, joy and pure anticipation of getting out there in the real world and practicing what you've learned! I always love making graduation portraits - whether that's for seniors in high school or seniors in college. So when Emily contacted me about making college graduation and couples' photos with her boyfriend, John, I knew we'd have a fantastic time making these images to celebrate such a wonderful milestone in her life. It was a bit of a windy, chilly day for our session, but Missoula in springtime is just gorgeous no matter what the weather decides to do. We had such a fun time on the ...
Dancemania! – {Oula’s First Annual Missoula Dance Party}
Dancemania is probably an understatement because the ladies at Oula's first annual dance party at the Stensrud Building in Missoula seriously ROCKED their FEET off. I had such a blast photographing so many happy people shaking their groove thang (huge kudos to Kali Lindner who created Oula!), and I hope you'll investigate all the awesomeness that is Oula. (I swear, if I hadn't been photographing, I would have been a "dancemaniac" as well!) This fab party was put together by the lovely Kelsey Motes-Conners from Glacier Parks Weddings and Events, who did a seriously wonderful job. Accents of fuschia along with pink drinks really popped and ...
Happy Halloween! – {2011 Missoula Trick-or-Treater Portraits}
A belated Happy Halloween to you all! It was another great night full of little goblins and ghouls ready for tricks, treats and pics at my Halloween Photo Spook Booth. Halloween has always been a favorite holiday of mine, and last year I thought - what the hey - it'll be fun to do this for all the little kids that come by my house on Halloween night. It was a great success last year, and such a fun time this year as well. I noticed there were a few returning trick-or-treaters from last year (I heard one boy shout, "This is the photo house! She's a photo god!" Thank you, mystery boy - that made my night!) as well as lots of new kids armed ...
Getting Art Into Missoula Schools – {Paxson Art Project}
This past spring I had the wonderful opportunity to help produce a documentary about the Paxson Art Project taking place in Paxson Elementary School in Missoula, a program that was developed by the Zootown Arts Community Center (ZACC). Visiting artists came into the school and taught kids from kindergarten through fifth grade new art concepts. Currently these kids only receive 6 hours of art per year. Yes, you heard that right - per YEAR. I stopped by these visiting artists' classes and put together an informative video about the project which will be shown to folks around the area to hopefully help educate them about the need for art for ...
Green Investment Group Acquires Old Smurfit-Stone Site – {Missoula Editorial & Commercial Photography}
Getting back to my photojournalism roots a bit, last week I was hired by Cork Tree Creative to photograph a press conference with Governor Brian Schweitzer and Ray Stillwell at the old Smurfit-Stone mill site to announce Green Investment Group, Inc.'s (GIGI) acquisition of the site. This is the seventh Smurfit-Stone paper mill acquired since 2006 by GIGI, an Alton, Illinois-based company that acquires and redevelops Brownfield sites throughout North America. (A Brownfield site is an abandoned or underutilized industrial or commercial site that is well-positioned for redevelopment.) Plans for the future use of the Missoula site are ...
Happy Halloween! – {Missoula Trick-or-Treater Portraits}
Halloween is one of my absolute favorite, FAVORITE holidays. As a kid, my brother, friends and I would always get all decked out in crazy costumes (Pippi Longstocking, penguins, Cheshire cats, you name it), ready to brave the chilly autumn weather for that forbidden pleasure: CANDY. I thought it would be fun to set up a photo booth of sorts for the trick-or-treaters stopping by my place last night. And we had a blast! Thanks to all the kiddos, teens and parents for having some photo fun! And now...drum roll please...the photos! P.S. I found a pair of nice gloves in my lawn last evening. If you're missing a pair, please call or e-mail ...
Cops in Shops in Missoula
I recently blogged about an event that I photographed Wednesday, the Cops in Shops kickoff event for the state of Montana. The Century Council blogged about it the other day and put up a few photos of the Attorney General Steve Bullock. I'm going to include a few more that I thought were kinda fun. One of the police officers posed with his motorcycle in the beer aisle of the Safeway on Broadway looking very stern (he was such a good sport!)...don't try to fake your age, folks! We also did a few shots with him acting as a cashier checking someone's ID. These may be used on some billboards, too - I don't know if that's a for sure thing or ...
Bucking broncos :: Missoula’s Western Montana Fair
I went to the fair in Missoula a week (or was it a couple weeks?) ago and had tickets to go to the rodeo with my boyfriend and a very good, old friend from my days in the midwest. It was pretty great - I haven't been to a rodeo since I was a wee thing passing through Jackson Hole - and I figured I'd take my camera along just for the heck of it. Disclaimer: I wasn't shooting as a press photographer so I didn't have the freedom to move around the arena, but I think some of these shots are kinda cool. Have fun checking them out! It's almost as if he's levitating. Check out the air this bronco got! Finally, the light became ...
Montana Food Bank Network’s Canstruction Event
The last couple days have been a bit hectic, but it's been great. I was busy helping out the Montana Food Bank Network cover their Canstruction event held at Southgate Mall in Missoula. Canstruction, if you haven't heard of this before, is an event where teams work to create and build structures out of cans. Various local organizations are paired up with architects and compete against one another for awards. All the cans of food are donated to the Montana Food Bank Network after the competition has ended. It was pretty cool to see what the teams came up with, and even more fun to see how much everyone was enjoying themselves. Very ...