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 everyone grinned as Emilia was assisted in blowing out her single big candle by two eager helpers.

As she sat down in front of her very own big girl cake, Emilia wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it. She touched it a little, and certainly got frosting all over her face and hands, but folks joked that she was her daddy’s daughter, as it appears she didn’t prefer cake all that much! However, as soon as her dad picked her up and held her near her cake, she became more interested and it wasn’t long before little fistfuls of huckleberry cake and frosting were quickly making their way into her mouth.

After Emilia was tidied up a bit and tiny purple handprints were wiped off walls and counters, it was time to open presents! She had a crew of handy helpers again, but Emilia certainly loved ripping off the wrapping paper and then shredding the paper in halves and quarters again – as small as she could get it!

Emilia! You’re such a big girl, and it was so fun to document your very first birthday! You’re such a lucky girl to have so many people in your life who love you so dearly and were so happy to celebrate with you! Thank you again, Josh and Cierra, for having me photograph such a special moment in Emilia’s life (and yours too of course!). I absolutely love getting to work with you all and capture these memories for you! And here’s a big happy birthday again to little miss Emilia!

On the docket: editorial shoots, portraits and weddings! Stay tuned!

Cheers,

-Kristine

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 University of Montana campus hitting up the symbolism trifecta (the Griz statue, Main Hall, and the M). And Emily added a little pizazz to the party by bring along some glitter to use in a few images (I admit that I totally yelped out of pure joy each time we made those shots – so fun!)

Our session then morphed into a couples’ session that John got to star in too! We really had a great time roaming around some funky little spots in Missoula, and making images of Emily and John – who clearly are smitten with one another. Those smiles!

Thank you again, Emily and John, for such an enjoyable shoot! It was so nice to meet you both, and here’s another big congratulations to you on your graduation! Here’s to a bright future – glitter included! :)

On the docket: portraits and weddings!
-Kristine

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 added to the lively atmosphere. Not to mention, a variety of great prizes from local vendors – shop local y’all!

And now, on to the photos! There’s more where these came from, so if you’d like to see the rest of the photos, hop on over to the online gallery to peruse at your leisure. Enjoy!

Don’t forget to give a little Facebook love to both Oula and Glacier Parks Weddings and Events! :)

On the docket: portraits!

Cheers,

-Kristine

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 with bags full of candy and chocolate-covered smiles.

Thanks so much for stopping by, showing me your awesome costumes, and taking a second to make some fun photos at the Halloween Photo Spook Booth. And now, on to the pictures! (This, of course, was just a fun Halloween treat for the kids, but if you’re a parent and would like a print of your child’s photo, please be in touch by either calling me at 406-240-3469 or by e-mailing me. All orders will need to be placed by the end of the month of November. Thank you!)

On the docket – more portraits, and “The Best of 2011 Weddings!” P.S. The Photo Booth is available to rent for parties and events. If you’re interested, hop on over to my website and read more about the booth.

Cheers!

-Kristine

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 kids.

Please take a moment to view this video, and if you find this as important as I do, please feel free to share with others. Thank you!

The video is about 10 minutes long (but so worth the watch), so you may want to get the video started by pressing the play button. Once it begins loading, I’d suggest pressing pause until the video is fully loaded, then begin watching. Don’t forget to have your volume turned on! Also, if you’d like to watch the video in HD (high definition, please click the link below the video to be taken to the Vimeo site to watch in HD.)

On the docket: portraits and weddings!

Cheers!

-Kristine

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 currently being formulated and will continue during the course of the coming months.  As plans are finalized, work will focus on clean-up and reconfiguration of the site to analyze the potential use of the existing facilities and land.

Ray Stillwell, principal of Green Investment Group, Inc., stated, “The Missoula property offers many opportunities for continued progress in the region. As with all of our projects, our main goal is to work with the community and local officials to develop a site that complements the other industries in the area and meets the economic needs and interests of its people by creating jobs in sustainable growth industries.”

Gov. Brian Schweitzer commented, “Green Investment Group has a proven track record of investing the necessary funds to save the industrial infrastructure and create good-paying jobs.  We welcome them to Montana.”

Thanks again to Cork Tree Creative and Ray Stillwell for contracting me for the shoot. It was nice to hang with the press folks again and make some images for you of this event. I look forward to working with you again in the future!

On the docket: engagement and portrait sessions!

Cheers,

-Kristine

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 me with the description of the gloves to come claim them. :)

This was just a fun Halloween treat for the kids, but if you’d like a print of your child’s photo, please be in touch. All orders will need to be placed by the end of the month of November. Thank you!

On the docket: engagement sessions, family sessions and more!

Cheers!

-Kristine

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 not yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as I hear!  In the meantime, here’s the screen grab from the Century Council’s blog…scroll down to the end of this post for the motorcycle photos:

Also – the Chronicle of Higher Education published their story about Susie, the woman whom I photographed in Pablo, Montana.  I took a screen grab – here it is!

And now, some police photos:

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 interesting.

These oxen were enormous!

Cute little boy wearing his dad’s jacket.

It’s amazing how skilled these guys were.

The little guy was so adorable!

And these chicks had some serious skill.

Mad bull.

I like the guys’ faces behind the action.

Cheers!
-Kristine

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 heartening.

I was busy taking photos during the entire event, as well as video, and put together a short-ish video to document it.

Check it out! I think it’s kinda fun! :)

Canstruction 2009
If your computer has the capabilities, be sure to watch it in HD!

Thanks!

-Kristine