October 15th UPDATE:

Fall mini sessions are finished for 2023 (and were awesome!!). But you can still sign up to my VIP list directly below to be the first to know about future mini sessions and discounts I occasionally offer. Yay! (Have no fear, I won’t send you 1 billion messages either. Just the important stuff like occasional discounts and freebies!)

Oooooooh, boy! Am I ever thrilled to announce this: for the first time ever, I am offering Missoula Montana Mini sessions — specifically, fall family minis! (Just in time for those holiday cards. )

But even more exciting is the fact that 50% of proceeds support Earth Within Girls summer program for refugee youth. Let’s make some beautiful photos for you, and make a positive difference for Earth Within Girls!

Speaking of, Earth Within Girls is a local Missoula non-profit “that offers nature-based education for upper elementary and middle school children who identify as girls. Our mission is to teach plant wisdom and self care to empower our students to connect their internal cycles and natural environment.” As a woman (and once a young girl) myself, their mission speaks to me — our bodies are intrinsically tied to nature, no matter how busy or disconnected we may be with it at any given point in time. Reconnecting with the natural world and creating a relationship to it is such a beautiful thing!

We’ll embrace natural beauty in our mini sessions by photographing them at a gorgeous outdoor location in the Missoula area. (The location is still to-be-determined, but you’ll be emailed all the details far before your session.) These sessions are for children and their parents/direct caregivers, and are inclusive of all kinds of caregivers and ages. Love and care surpass any sort of age bounds! To make things extra special, you’ll also be treated to a stunning floral backdrop provided by Earth Within Flowers!

Sessions will be on Saturday, October 14 from 10am to 5pm, and I, Kristine, will bring my signature positive, playful energy to your session to put you and your children at ease. (Read more about my portraits and how I work here.) Get ready to giggle, smile, and be a little silly together! (And enjoy actually being IN your photos with your kids instead of the one always behind the camera or phone!) Earth Within Girls staff will also be there to assist you before and after the session to make it an absolutely delightful experience for your family.

If you’ve been reading this wondering what exactly a mini session is, that’s okay, too! Mini sessions are typically shorter than a full session (these minis will be 15 minutes), are offered in windows of time throughout a specific day, and take place at a predetermined location. They also include a set number of high-resolution edited digital files of your choice that you can download and print as you’d like!

For a limited time, I’m opening up booking for these sessions to my VIP subscribers at a nice discount.

To get on that VIP list and receive the discount, please sign up below, and you’ll be emailed all the details about these mini sessions! (Have no fear, I won’t send you 1 billion messages either. Just the important stuff like occasional discounts and freebies!)

Please share this opportunity with your other caregiver friends so we can contribute a nice donation to Earth Within Girls. Remember — mini sessions are a rare occurrence with me, so be sure to book your spot quickly before they fill up!

Sign up below to get early bird access to book your Missoula fall mini session!

Cheers!
-Kristine

This is a bit of a departure from my regular photography client posts that I typically share here. But it’s a huge part of who I am and what I love to do, so here it is on this blog! When I have a bit of free time (which isn’t a whole lot — I’m actively trying to get better at that), one of my favorite things to do is sew! Recently I had the opportunity to make the Pier 7 Top as a promotional sew for New Horizons Designs. It’s been on my wishlist for a while, so I’m glad I finally got to give it a whirl!

   First and foremost, it’s a super cute top. The website describes it as follows:

The Pier 7 top is named after a popular pier in San Francisco. This light and airy top is beautiful and flattering on many types of figures. It features delicate pintucks on the bodice, soft fluttery sleeves, and the choice of shirring or elastic casing at the waist. Included is a wide range of sizes from 00-26.

I chose a lightweight rayon gauze fabric to make this top, which was the perfect complement to the flowy nature of the top’s design, especially the ruffle at the waistline and the flutter sleeves. The lightweight rayon also allowed for easy shirring at the waistline because it wasn’t too heavy and subsequently didn’t inhibit the shirring.

Also, I specifically chose a lighter color fabric so as to best showcase the details of the top. I feel like a darker colored fabric, or one with a busier pattern, might have camouflaged the details too much.

Overall the pattern instructions were extremely clear, which is something I really enjoy about New Horizons. It was my first time sewing pintucks, and while the pattern was clear in its instructions in this section, I chose a different method to construct the pintucks. This alternate method I used just felt a bit more intuitive to me than what was included in the pattern.

The pattern also recommends using spray starch on lightweight, shifty fabrics to make the pintucks easier to manage. I used spray starch initially, and it is helpful to handle lightweight fabrics. However, I ultimately, ended up sewing a second bodice (which I’ll touch on in a second) and decided not to use spray starch for that second version. Because of this, I’d recommend testing your fabric first when pressing pintucks to see if you really need to use spray starch. It was clear to me on my second try of the bodice that spray starch just wasn’t necessary for this particular fabric, as long as I had a little patience and pressed the fabric carefully and thoughtfully.

Now, onto the reason I started a second bodice in the first place. To be clear, it’s not because the instructions were poor or the pattern is bad — that’s not the case at all. It’s a great pattern and is very clearly written! It was simply all related to the fabric I chose.

In my case, the rayon gauze I used was ever-so-slightly sheer. Because the pattern calls for an interfaced facing at the front and back necklines, due to that double layer of fabric in the facing areas, the facing ended up being visible through the main bodice fabric. Basically, the slight sheerness of the fabric made the edges of the facing really obvious in the areas where the fabric became “doubled up.” The facing and neckline itself looked great and produced a great, clean finish, so I went back and forth whether I should just leave it. But in the end, I decided I’d never wear the top if that facing was visible through the main fabric.

I initially ripped the facing out with the idea that I would just use a French bias binding to finish the neckline. However, after ripping all that facing out, the neckline ended up stretching out and just wasn’t salvageable. So, second bodice it was.

As I mentioned previously, on the second bodice, I skipped the spray starch and just marked all my pintuck lines with a washaway marker, and pressed and sewed following the technique I linked to above — no spray starch needed.

Also, it’s worth noting that for this second bodice, I really wanted to ensure that the neckline and armscyes wouldn’t stretch out. So I stay-stitched each of those curves at 1/8 inch from the edge of the fabric, and I’m eternally thankful I did. It was a great reminder to never skip that step, even if you think it’s a waste of time. It’s definitely not and if I had done it on the first bodice, I might have been able to salvage it. Lesson learned!

I’m fairly certain stay-stitching is the only reason my neckline didn’t stretch and warp again. Speaking of that neckline, for my second go-around, I nixed the pattern’s facing, and instead used bias binding (in the same fabric as the top), and bound it to the neckline, french bias binding style. I think it looks great, the only caveat being that the line of topstitching sews down a small portion of the pintucks at the top of the neckline. This doesn’t bother me at all, though, and I still think the neckline finish with the binding looks neat and professional. And most importantly, it doesn’t gape! (The first bodice attempt did gape because the neckline stretched.)

I loved doing the rolled hem on the waistline and the flutter sleeves. It adds such a delicate touch and I really am smitten with that feature of this pattern! I did the rolled hem on my serger, which took no time at all.

The next thing to tackle was the shirred waistline. The pattern offers instructions for either a gathered waistline using an elastic casing, or the shirring technique. I’d never done shirring before, and as someone who loves trying new techniques, I decided I might as well give it a go! And I’m so glad I did. Can I just shirr all the things now?

It does require some patience and practice, so definitely give it a trial run on some scrap fabric beforehand. I watched a LOT of videos prior to messing around with it and practiced a fair amount before even touching the actual bodice of the top. I’m so thankful I took that time to really get used to how my machine behaved with elastic thread in the bobbin.

It’s important to determine the correct stitch length, too, so you don’t “over-shirr” your fabric and make your waistband accidentally too tight. A good rule of thumb — a longer stitch length means more space between the gathers, which results in a narrower piece of fabric once you’re done. A shorter stitch length means less space between the gathers, which results in a larger piece of fabric once you’re done. In my case, I needed to choose a shorter stitch length.

For my machine, I decreased my stitch length to 1.8 (it’s normally 2.5) but I didn’t adjust my stitch or bobbin tension at all. (Some tutorials suggest adjusting your bobbin tension, but that seemed somewhat terrifying so I skipped it, and was absolutely fine without that adjustment on my particular machine. I sew with a Singer Quantum Stylist 9960.)

In my experience, though, it is important to find the sweet spot with how you seat the elastic thread in your bobbin casing. I kind of had to really tug mine into the tension doohickey so that it wouldn’t pop loose. This felt kind of weird to me, and it did sort of make a strange tiny whining noise while sewing. But it didn’t damage my machine at all or mess up the bobbin tension when I went to sew with regular thread in the bobbin again, so I’m counting it as a win.

Also, don’t forget to steam the heck out of your shirring after you’ve finished that step! It really helps to “shrink” the shirring into place and gather the waist perfectly. And it’s fun to watch! (Perhaps I’m easily amused, though.)

After completing the shirring step I went to try on the top and squealed with excitement. It was SO beautiful and delicate! And the shirred waist was extremely comfortable – way comfier than elastic casings I typically use in patterns that require it.

The only thing I needed to adjust was the length of the top. The “bodice skirt,” as it’s called in the pattern, was just too long for my body’s particular proportions and made my legs look too short. So I trimmed off 3 and 3/4 inches from the bottom of the top to make my legs appear longer. Side bonus — even though I cut off that much from the bottom of the top, it still maintains a beautiful, loose drape and delicate movement, which is part of the appeal of this top.

The last thing I needed to do was hem, and voila! All finished!

Despite having to make that second bodice, I really do love this top. It’s so feminine, light and exceptionally pretty. I’m currently thinking of ways to elongate it into a dress, too! (If you are interested in that option as well, but don’t want to draft it on your own, New Horizons has a dress version on their site — with a long sleeve option!)

And, even though this top is generally thought of as a spring or summer piece, I think it would be so cute for colder months when celebrating holidays, etc., or under a loose cardigan. Or, just on its own if you run warmer than I do!

This pattern solidly gets a “love” from me, and will definitely be used again!

I hope that helped a few of you, and, in the meantime, happy sewing!

Cheers,

-Kristine

Unless you have been living under a rock somewhere, I’m sure you’re well aware that the Coronavirus and COVID-19 have drastically changed this world and our everyday lives. It’s also changed my photography business (for the time being). So I wanted to write a quick blog post addressing COVID-19 and Photography, and how I and my business are handling it.

First things first – I am a very, very lucky photographer. This is directly related to the fact that a couple years ago, I miraculously got offered a job at a web design company out of San Francisco and have been working remotely for them ever since. I still have that job today while simultaneously running my photo business. Because of that job, I’m not struggling nearly as much as some of my other photography colleagues are. However, that doesn’t mean that things haven’t changed for me and that my business hasn’t taken a hit financially. Because it has.

That said, due to the way I’ve run my business the past 14 or so years, I WILL weather this storm and I don’t plan on going anywhere. It’s an understatement to say just how eager I am to pick up my camera again to document your lives, loves, dreams and businesses just as soon as it’s safe to do so again!

True, my photo income is shaky at best right now. But I’m committed to doing what I can to slow the spread of the virus, ensure safety within our community, and absolutely support the decisions of my clients if they need to reschedule their shoots, or plan for a shoot farther into the future than they had originally anticipated. Health and safety first, always!

In the meantime, I’ve had a lot of people assuming that I’m not working. True, shoots aren’t taking place right now, but I’m still plugging away over here working on the behind-the-scenes stuff to serve my clients and to keep my business operational. Just a few things I’m doing are answering emails, editing photos, delivering photos, editing albums, printing albums, placing orders, honing my craft by learning new techniques, updating my website, researching stock photography, etc., etc., etc. And still working my other job on top of it, as per usual!

I’m also actively looking for ways I can diversify and continue to have some sort of an income stream from my business. (So if you’re interested in purchasing any of my wildlife or nature imagery, please let me know! That said, I know everyone’s budgets are a little stressed right now, so no worries if you can’t or aren’t interested in that.)

I also just wanted to share what I’m doing when I’m not working (because we can’t work ALL the time, even though I sometimes am guilty of working too much). I’m a person who loves to constantly be creating, moving, thinking, and helping. So, here are a few fun things I’ve been up to. Hopefully these will bring a little light and perhaps some inspiration to your day!

As some of you may know, I really love to sew. So I figured that using my sewing skills to help make masks for others would come in handy! I also created a mask sewing tutorial on my Instagram account that you can follow along if you’d like so you can make your very own masks as well! Please note – these homemade masks do not replace medical grade masks, and cannot fully protect you from the virus. What they can do, though, is help to keep you from touching your face when you’re out in public, and can also keep your own bugs to yourself. :) Please, still be mindful of the stay-at-home order, though, and don’t let the fact that you’re wearing a mask give you an excuse to be reckless in your social behavior. Remember, we are all in this together!

I’ve also decided to try a new app for at-home workouts! Fitbod is fast becoming a favorite of mine because not only are they offering free bodyweight workouts to anyone and everyone for the time being, if you DO want to pay for a subscription it’s affordable! Not to mention, it allows you to input any sort of gym equipment you own and then it builds workouts for you based off of that very equipment (along with bodyweight exercises). It’s become a great motivator for me, the workouts are enjoyable (and REALLY do work you hard!), it’s an excellent outlet for any lifestyle frustrations you’re feeling, and it makes me feel less guilty about the comfort-food cravings I’ve been having when life has me feeling low. Plus, toning up is never a bad thing, no matter what’s going on. (I want to be primed and ready to shoot again once we’re allowed to!)

Even with all this wackiness that’s going on in the world, nature still marches right along (thank goodness!), and I cannot TELL you how grateful I am that warmer weather is headed our way, along with new beginnings. Spring crocuses are always a great reminder of that. Plus, they’re just about the sweetest, most beautiful things ever, don’t you think?

I am a big fan of being able to laugh at the absurdity of things. And, while of course this virus is scary and it’s wise to take its dangers seriously, I’m pretty sure you still also have to find ways to laugh.

Enter: social “fishtancing.” Montana’s Fish, Wildlife & Parks put together a really clever graphic reminding people what 6 feet between them looks like – all with different fish. When I first saw this, I just loved it! Check it out:

As good as that was, Brandon figured he’d be a great example of a 6 foot (+ 4 inches) distance, so we had a good time putting our own spin on that social distancing graphic, with Brandon as a replacement. (Side note: he works for the forest service, and no, this is not “forest service official.” This is just our way to get a good chuckle in.)

That’s all I’ve got for the moment, but I do want to say one more thing:

Please stay strong, stay healthy, stay vigilant! Please support your small, local businesses! We all could use a helping hand and I KNOW for a fact we ALL appreciate it!

Last, but not least, I hope this post gave you a little smile. And in the meantime, I’m dreaming of the day we’ll all get to see each others’ smiling faces in person again!

Cheers,

-Kristine

Recently, Groovy Guy Gifts sent me a personalized “Totes Magotes” bag in the mail and asked me to write up a review of it – so here it is! The Groovy Guy Gifts Totes Magotes Bag review.

As you might guess from the name of the company, Groovy Guy Gifts specializes in gifts you might want to give the special guy or guys in your life. In particular, they market what they offer to people looking for groomsman gifts. However, I think that a lot of what they sell could be given as a gift at any time – no need to be a groomsman.

The Totes Magotes bag is a perfect example of this. Any guy who ever needs to transport his stuff in style, but with a classier upgrade to the tried and true duffel bag, has got a good option in this offering. And, it can be personalized with three initials for free!

The Groovy Guy Gifts website describes the bag as follows:

This personalized canvas luggage tote comes with a main compartment, inside zipper pocket, outside pocket, bottom zippered compartment, and adjustable strap. The canvas is dry waxed to preserve the material and maintain its durability and can be customized with a single or three initials, at no extra charge. With vegan leather and antique gold accents, this bag is a stylish option without limiting its functionality.

When picking out this bag, one of the main things that really attracted Brandon to it was the fact that it boasts a separate, zippered compartment below the larger main one. According to him, it’s a perfect spot for shoes (or anything else) that you want to keep separated from the rest of what you’re carrying. Both the bottom of the zippered compartment and the bottom of the main storage section of the bag are reinforced to give the bag some structure.

He also really liked the (fairly large) extra zippered pocket inside. To our surprise, there was an additional drawstring pouch inside the bag that was made out of the same lining material as the rest of the bag. That pouch wasn’t mentioned in the website description.

Speaking of the lining, it’s a great addition to this bag and is made out of a good quality material with a pleasing, classic design. The outside pocket of the bag is even lined, too!

Another nice touch is the removable shoulder strap, along with two different locations at which it can be attached to the bag.

Lastly, one of the most important factors in a bag is its size and portability. I’d describe this one as a great “Goldilocks” bag (though maybe don’t describe it that way to the guys you know). But you know – it’s not too small, not too big – it’s just right! The dimensions of the bag are as follows (per their website information):

• L: Duffle: 20”. Outside Pocket: 6.5”. Inside Zippered Pocket: 6”. Handle Drop: 7”. Adjustable Strap: 53”. Bottom Compartment: 20”
• W: Duffle: 10.5”. Outside Pocket: 6.5”. Inside Zippered Pocket: 8”. Adjustable Strap: 1.5”. Bottom Compartment: 10.5”
• H: Duffle: 17.5”. Bottom Compartment: 4”
• 20 oz dry wax canvas. Vegan leather accents antique gold accents.

All in all, we were both impressed by the quality of this bag and what is has to offer. It would easily make a great gift for anyone in your life who needs a way to transport their belongings in style!

If you’d like to purchase your own bag, you can get it here for $79.99.

Please note: I received this bag from Groovy Guy Gifts in exchange for an honest review. 

On the docket:

Portraits and weddings! Stay tuned!

Cheers,

-Kristine

Skiing into Garnet Ghost Town in Montana has long been on my list of “things I really want to do.” A friend of mine had done it a few years back, and, while I’ve visited the ghost town numerous times during the spring and summer, I had never experienced it during the winter. Cross country skiing into the little ghost town, nestled in its very own tiny valley, sounded like the perfect way to enjoy a little slice of Montana winter.

When initially researching how to make this happen, we came across various pieces of information, but none of them was super definitive, and most of what we were able to find out was pieced together from multiple sources. (Our sources included the Garnet Ghost Town website, calls to the Bureau of Land Management [otherwise known as the BLM], other blog posts, beta from friends who’d done it in the past, sleuthing around on Google Maps, etc., etc.). So, after all of that, we decided we’d document our mini winter adventure to the ghost town via a blog post that will (hopefully) help someone else out in the future!

Choosing the Route to Garnet Ghost Town

After a lot of initial hemming and hawing over which way to approach the ghost town, we opted for the Highway 90 route, instead of the Highway 200 option. The Highway 200 option has folks ski for 10 miles on Garnet Range Road over a gradual ascent of about 2500 feet elevation. From what we were able to tell, that route is generally groomed.

Garnet Ghost Town via Garnet Range Road with access from Highway 200.

However, this didn’t exactly appeal to us for a couple reasons. 1) Neither of us wanted to spend the time skiing for 10 miles with heavy packs on our backs. 2) Based on beta we were able to glean from our multiple sources, it sounded like the Highway 90 option would afford us better views of the surrounding valley and would be shorter, albeit with a greater elevation gain in a shorter distance.

Per our searches, the Highway 90 option (which has a trail starting out from Beartown) has you follow Cave Gulch Road. (Don’t be confused by Google Map’s default route choice which points you onto Bear Gulch Road. It’s shorter, but is a private road and isn’t accessible.) Cave Gulch Road is roughly 5.7 miles (per my RunKeeper tracker) and sports an elevation gain of about 2000 feet. It’s an ungroomed, steady, gradual climb for most of the route with a slight downhill right before hitting town.

Garnet Ghost Town via Cave Gulch Road with access from Highway 90.

This seemed like the ideal way to go for us because, even though we kept hearing “it’s steep and most people don’t go that route,” we figured anything is doable at 5 miles, and we’d give ourselves time to take it slow and have fun on the way up. Plus, the better views were more appealing.

Cave Gulch Road Route to Garnet Ghost Town

While I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of the 10 mile route we didn’t take (other than driving it in the spring and summer), I’m super glad we opted for the Cave Gulch Road approach! We started skiing at about 1 pm, and even though we spent a lot of time goofing around and taking things fairly slowly, we still got into the ghost town in good time and arrived at about 5 pm.

The route was not groomed, though snowmobiles had made a pass or two on it likely several days prior to our outing. This resulted in a base that was a little packed, which made skiing the ungroomed snow easier than it would have been had there been no packed base.

This winter has been unseasonably warm, and so the south-facing road and snow definitely were a little sun-baked by the time we hit it. We slogged uphill at times as the snow stuck to the bottoms of our classic skis. In retrospect, the ideal time to start out would have been a touch earlier in the day to minimize softening of the snow. However, in spite of that, it was still a lovely ski, and as we climbed higher and started hitting shadier areas, the snow became more powdery and easier to glide on.

Brandon adjusts the bindings on his skis to give him more leverage on the ascent.

What would a trip be without a selfie or two? (The sun was baking us – felt like spring skiing! But we weren’t complaining!)

That lightweight jacket came off pretty quickly and we skied in base layers for the rest of the route.

In certain areas of the Cave Gulch route, we spied some beautiful, snowy flakes that caught the light oh-so-perfectly.

All that Vitamin D had us a little delirious! And, because we know how to compose a shot, we did our best to ensure we each had trees sticking out of our noggins. (Yes, that’s an exceptionally-bad photographer joke.)

There were little “cinnamon roll” snow rollers all over the place! I love these little things!

If you ever have the opportunity to find perfectly soft snow, stick your face in it. Seriously. I used to do this as a kid when we’d spring ski and we’d get a kick out of how perfectly our faces were captured as a relief in the snow. So. Funny!

See! They’re incredible!

A snow scream!

Documenting our shenanigans. (Side note: this was my first time using my new Sony camera, which I purchased specifically for trips where I don’t want to lug around my giant DSLRs, and it held up beautifully. Such a great little piece ‘o’ gear!)

We were pretty happy to reach the highest point of the route! Mostly downhill from this point forward!

Why, thank you, iphone panorama mode.

The sunny day afforded us some really lovely views of the neighboring mountains.

So, the iphone panorama mode is great and all, but it’s even more fun when you mess with it and create totally bizarre images! (Look at those random arms and poles! Haha!)

The snow rollers just caught the light so beautifully.

The critter tracks on the way to the ghost town were everywhere and really stood out in the evening light! Right: The McDonald cabin we stayed in. I swear, it’s not made of gingerbread even though it might look like it.

After we hit the highest point of the route (there’s a junction and signs pointing to the ghost down in one direction and another sign pointing to I-90 in the opposite direction), it was mostly downhill. As you get closer to the ghost town there are a few more signs, one of which points to the handicap parking area. We opted to take that route, which was pretty rutted up from snowmobile usage. That meant a challenging descent down a steep and winding road on skinny little cross country skis, which also resulted in a few tumbles. (Have I mentioned that skiing with a heavy pack on your back is not the easiest thing ever to do?)

But, we both made it in one piece and were stoked to be in town! The next order of business was to locate our cabin. There are two in the ghost town that you can rent. You need to make reservations ahead of time and the the BLM will send you an informational packet in the mail, complete with a combination to the lock on the door that you do not want to forget. (Keep in mind, there is no cell service in the ghost town!)

We had the McDonald cabin rented, which is the smaller of the two cabins in the ghost town and slightly up a hill and off to the “side” of things.

Initially we started going up a nearby hill to approach the cabin from above, but then realized easier access would be from below. Brandon turned a bit in the heavy snow on the hill to head back down, and BOOM, POW, SHATTER! I heard a horrible cracking sound, witnessed a giant piece of black plastic fly through the air, and it was clear Brandon’s ski binding had just committed a very unfortunate act of harikari.

To Brandon’s credit, he took it in stride (even after slicing up his hand on what was left of his binding and leaving a blood trail through the snow to the cabin). In spite of all that, he helped us get into the cabin and get the stove going. (Thankfully there was split kindling inside and we were able to warm things up pretty quickly.)

The inside of the McDonald cabin can sleep 4 on two double beds. There were mouse turds around, but during our two nights there we didn’t hear any mouse activity. We also melted snow for better-tasting water than what was available in the spigot down the hillside.

The McDonald cabin boasted plenty of icicle adornments along the roofline, was well-stocked with chopped wood, and has its own, private outhouse out back behind the cabin.

The McDonald cabin has an outdoor woodpile to access as well.

Perched on a the hill, the McDonald cabin is in a great little location that’s up and off the main road through the ghost town. This means a bit more peace and quiet away from snowmobilers who can also zip through the ghost town via the lower, main road.

The stove in the McDonald cabin heats up slowly, but gets very hot, and our damp clothes and shoes dried out quickly! Here, Brandon works to glue his binding back together in the hopes that he might be able to ski out of the ghost town the next day. Fingers crossed!

In addition to the stove for heat (BLM’s usage instructions need to be updated for this particular stove – there is no lever beneath the ash catch), the McDonald cabin also has a propane stove that we did our cooking on. In one cupboard they have various pots and pans, most of them fairly small. Many of them also looked pretty dusty so we cleaned all of them prior to using them (and after using them, of course). We brought our own soap and sponge to use. (Of note: when you’re done using the pots/pans flip them upside down if you can to keep them as clean as possible for the next people who might use them.)

There were also numerous clothespins, which were much appreciated when drying out damp belongings over the wood stove. And, for ambiance (or I suppose, for basic illumination purposes), the cabin also has two propane-powered lights. (One of them is missing a protective glass cover, though, so if you are tall be careful not to torch your hair or ski hat!!)

The cabin also comes with hand sanitizer (much appreciated) and one roll of toilet paper. (I might suggest bringing a roll of your own, though, as the one that was left for us wasn’t, ahem, the cleanest thing ever.) The water bottle pictured at right was also provided, but we (and by we, I mean Brandon) had to fill the water via the spigot down the hillside.

Though the water is potable, it tastes pretty much like straight-up iron. (See that yellow tinge?) We instead opted to melt snow over the wood stove in a large pot that comes with the cabin, and use that as our own drinking water. No issues there and it tasted wonderful! The whiskey was ours that we brought for good measure.

A couple funky little mirrors adorn the far wall of the McDonald cabin.

The McDonald cabin also has a fridge that can be powered by propane. We opted not to fire it up, though, and just used it as a storage space for the food that we brought. We cooled it off via tubs full of icicles!

We skied into the ghost town Friday evening and had Saturday to poke around (as well as fix Brandon’s shattered binding). At one point we wondered if we should ask some snowmobilers for a ride out if it looked like Brandon’s situation was going to be really awful. But we figured 5 miles was doable since we’d already packed a bit of the trail down on our initial ski into the ghost town.

However, we decided to say “hi” to the snowmobilers anyway, since they were poking around the town as we were walking around checking it out, too. As it turns out, two of the snowmobiler folks were actor, Kevin McKidd (of Grey’s Anatomy fame) and his wife who were staying at the nearby Paws Up resort to celebrate their anniversary. (You can see his Instagram post about their visit here – we were just off to the right in several of these shots. Haha!) It’s funny who you encounter in Montana sometimes.

This little stove cranked and thoroughly dried out my wet shoes!

I think my most favorite part about the ghost town (besides the fun of skiing there) was just how amazing the stars were in the evenings. We were lucky enough to see several shooting stars (including one really slow, fat, green one), and so I HAD to mess around with my new camera and test out how well it would do capturing starlight. Granted, this photo isn’t the sharpest, but my fingers were also fairly numb by this point in time. Kudos to Brandon for being a very patient model for me!

Several Canada Jays (also known as gray jays, camp robbers or whisky jacks) decided to visit us the morning of our departure. I know many people don’t like these little fellows, but I can’t get enough of them. I mean – look at that little face and those soft feathers! Beautiful, dapper little dudes! However, be mindful of the wildlife and don’t feed them or leave scraps about!

By the time Sunday morning rolled around, Brandon had completely glued, taped and reattached his shattered binding to his ski. And, if I do say so myself, I was super impressed by his handiwork! The game plan was that he would strap his skis to his pack for the uphill portions of our ski/hike back so as not to put too much tension on the repair, and I’d ski ahead to try to pack down his pathway a bit more so he wouldn’t be post-holing all the way back.

Turns out, hiking wasn’t that bad of an option for a lot of the route back. I’d (sillily) forgotten (maybe I blocked out the fact?!) that all that uphill portion we’d skied was a downhill on the way back. And when cooler temps create a crust on the snow and you’re trying to navigate turns on cross country skis you 1) FLY LIKE A SPEEDING BULLET 2) have very little room for error when turning 3) most especially when wearing a pack 4) and will likely endure some mega crashes.

You know. Speaking for a friend. Or something like that.

After a few of those aforementioned mega crashes (my knees have the bruises to prove it – wait a second – my friend’s knees), I gave up on trying to ski some of the steeper stuff and just took the sticks off my ski boots and hiked it along with Brandon. At one point, during one of the several times I detached my bats outta hell skis, one of the sneaky buggers decided to take itself for a little spin on that super fast crust, and was slated to go sailing off the trail and down a steep embankment, Loose Caboose style.

I could see what was about to happen, and before I knew it I found myself doing the only thing I could – belly-flopping straight onto the ski to prevent its imminent escape. Doing this with a giant pack on, of course, meant this move was less-than-graceful (hold up – is a belly flop ever graceful??). I was laughing so hard at my turtle-like state that I literally couldn’t get up. Thankfully Brandon hoisted me up by the pack on my back (I suddenly felt like I was five-years-old again) and off we continued on our little hike/ski/ski/hike/hike/ski.

Eventually Brandon switched out his hiking boots to ski boots, clipped into his skis and away he went! I still find this utterly amazing considering the state of his binding! Of course, he was mindful about not bending his foot too much within that fragile binding, but whaddya know – he made it all the way back to the car with his binding still intact. SO impressed!

Suffice it to say, the ski trip to the Garnet Ghost Town was a super fun adventure, and we were both really glad to have done it! It’s definitely a uniquely Montana experience, and one of the many reasons I’m grateful to live in this state!

I hope this blog post helps others out who are looking to enjoy a little ghost town adventure of their own in the winter!

Cheers,

-Kristine

Towards the end of January, I had the opportunity to head to the United Kingdom with my new group of Webflow teammates. (In case you missed it, I’m continuing to run my photo business because I love you all so much, and I’m also now working with Webflow as well, which is basically just the best combination ever.) 

I’ve had a lot of people ask me why our group of 11 decided to hop across the pond – and the answer is, one of our teammates, Stu, lives in Nottingham, but it’s not the easiest for him to travel. So, we figured, let’s travel to Stu! And I’m just so beyond glad that we did. It was my first time meeting the majority of my teammates since we all work remotely and are scattered across the globe. I’ve gotta say, getting to hang out with these fine folks was such a treat, and though video chat is great, being able to work together, laugh together and communicate together in real life is just the best thing ever. 

Anywho, I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story. :) Enjoy! 

Left: Ben grabbed a quick snap of me, Micah and himself (Waldo isn’t pictured here) as we were about to board our little prop plane from Scotland to England. We were all a bit bleary-eyed after hours and hours of long flights, but also ridiculously excited. Right: Nottingham made sure we knew we had arrived.

Our view from the conference room rooftop deck. Nottingham mornings treated us to mist, soft light, and lots of green.

I left Missoula at around 5 am Saturday morning and arrived to England around 11 am Sunday morning. The afternoon we arrived, we decided to stretch our legs (which was much appreciated after being cooped up on the airplane), and take a tour of Nottingham University, which was full of lush, mossy landscapes.

Andrew, Stu, and Sonia were all super happy to be together, out on that rooftop deck!

This was the lovely conference room where we spent most of our days working, sharing ideas, and planning for great things for our team. The light was pretty sweet. :)

Monday night, the majority of us all took to the town and hit up George’s Great British Kitchen for some dinner. Brandon and Amy couldn’t resist these fun little caricatures in the entryway.

George’s Great British Kitchen was a super cool space. As we waited for a table that could accommodate all of us, Andrew and Micah chatted, and Brandon and Waldo cheesed for the camera.

If you can’t tell, we all really like being together. Left: Amy and Brandon. Right: Brandon, Waldo and Dave.

Such a fun place. And that bar, tho!

What did I tell you? The bar was just so pretty.

When in England, one *must* get fish and chips. And mushy peas. (Yes, that’s the actual description of the peas you get with fish and chips.)

Left: While we were waiting for our table, I decided to wander around a little bit and found a cool balcony no one else was using – perfect for a bird’s eye view of the place. Right: the dessert (pudding) menu. (They were so, SO good!)

Just a few of the puddings they served – can you guess which is which? (I have now also become completely smitten with Bakewell tarts. Yum!)

Ambiance, baby. Ambiance.

Sonia and Dave were most pleased with their puddings.

Ben was surprised with a giant mountain of candy floss (cotton candy) with his pudding. As it turns out, Andrew is a big fan of candy floss, so he helped Ben make that disappear.

These little caricatures were just too good. Waldo couldn’t resist their charms either.

Boys and their beards. LOL!

Tuesday afternoon we took a little excursion to Warwick Castle. Dave and Brandon spiffed themselves up for Dave’s selfie-stick camera.

Lily worked it for the camera before we made our way to the castle grounds.

Hey yo! That’s one heckuva castle! Per the castle’s website (that feels a little weird to say, ha!), “the records of a walled-building in Warwick can be traced back to the Saxon fortification which Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred the Great, used to defend against the invading Danes. The first castle to appear on the site was a wooden motte and bailey constructed in 1068 at the command of William the Conqueror.” 1068, you guys! TEN SIXTY EIGHT!

Dave exercised his selfie stick magic to grab a shot of the entire team together.

I mean, who doesn’t want a selfie with a castle, right?! Waldo, Amy, Brandon and Ben smiled for Ben’s camera.

The castle entryway! And very large clock!

Such a cool place! These are the inner grounds.

One of the rooms inside was full of all sorts of weaponry and armor. Pretty darn impressive.

People who live in castles are definitely not minimalists.

An eagle carving adorned one of the fireplaces.

I sort of loved this ceiling. And, hey, I was there too! Courtesy of a giant mirror.

This hallway was full of more armor and a HUGE cauldron, which I, for some reason, didn’t photograph. At right, I caught Andrew in a photo before he could dash away from me. And hey! There I am again, courtesy of yet another GIANT MIRROR.

The castle also boasted quite a lot of intricate stained glass. And wooden carvings that I found to be just spectacular.

I mean, look at this guy! Incredible!

Can you fall in love with a stairway? Because I certainly did. Next time I’m in the market for a castle, I’m going to make sure this kind of a stairway is added to mine. Just beautiful.

Gah! Look at that stairway and stained glass! (And that teal/blue color!)

We climbed higher to get a view of the surrounding country.

Thanks, Ben, for documenting that I was on this trip, too! As it turns out, the people of yesteryear were quite a bit shorter. I could not stand up straight in this doorway.

Ben also could not stand up straight in the doorway. Right: He makes his way up one of the few non-winding staircases.

At the top of one of the castle turrets, we had this great view of the inner courtyard.

I will wedge myself into tiny crevices for the shot. (Thanks to Ben for the photo.)

A view of the surrounding neighborhoods. I wonder what castle frontage costs?

Left: From atop one of the turrets we caught Andrew and Amy down on a walkway below. Right: I just loved these skinny little windows we’d come across as we made our way up and down the incredibly narrow, incredibly spiral staircases in the castle turrets.

The local cathedral isn’t too shabby either.

I am obsessed, OBSESSED, with these little black and white houses all along the cobblestone streets. Check out their backyard gardens! Love!

Thank you, red convertible, for parking here. My color-loving, graphic-loving self was beyond giddy.

Left: Sonia caught the light in the castle entryway. Right: it was a rainy, damp day. Which made the stone pathways even prettier.

We couldn’t resist some castle gift shop shenanigans. Dave decided to let his inner Viking show. (Dave, you just crack me up in the BEST way possible!)

As we left the castle grounds, a bunch of female peacocks decided to dash across the road. So I dashed right after them and found that they had perched atop this colorful brick wall in the last of the golden, evening light. Be still my bird-loving, color-loving heart, light-loving heart!

Left: You probably can’t tell from this image, but these old black and white buildings were extremely crooked. :) Right: The peacock shows me her best self and puts up with my cooing.

We popped into the Tudor House Inn for some drinks in their pub. According to their website, “the Tudor House Inn is an authentic oak-beamed 15th century building and one of the most recognised and well-known medieval buildings in the town.” Nifty!

That is one heckuva fireplace (this is inside the inn).

Ben grabbed another snap of part of the group as we sat down to beers in the medieval inn.

Ben’s intent on his beer. The bar was lined with an assortment of coins from all sorts of places.

Waldo demonstrates the way to drink a Strongbow cider. Dave was impressed!

Sonia loved her beer too!

After grabbing drinks inside the Tudor House Inn, we went right next door to have dinner (along with more Strongbow cider – it brings me back to my London days when I lived there in my early 20s! – good memories!). Stu was quite pleased with his burger.

On my last day in Nottingham, Stu took the remaining four of us (Waldo, Ben, Micah and me) to Wollaton Hall (where apparently part of the Batman movies were filmed – though I wouldn’t know as I’ve never seen a Batman movie). The old trees on the grounds were just beautiful and huge!

Can you believe that this is the BACK side of Wollaton Hall?

The carved cameos all over the building were pretty amazing. And the statues on the grounds were lovely, too. (This statue had THE longest toes I’ve ever seen!)

Little carved gargoyles protected all the windows and entrances – I particularly loved this little dude. Look at his eyebrows and nose wrinkle!!!

Waldo, Ben, Stu and Micah – the boy band of Wollaton Hall. Haha!

Alas, we had to say our goodbyes Friday evening, so Stu grabbed one last snapshot of him with the remaining four of us still in Nottingham. From left: Micah, Waldo, Stu, Ben and me. So we bid Stu, “Toodle Pip!” and were on our way to the airport to make our way to Scotland.

Left: The East Midlands airport was decorated with painted tiles local schoolchildren had made. I liked this guy a lot. Right: Back to our prop plane!

The four of us had a 10 hour layover in Scotland, however. So, despite getting there around 11:30/midnight, I knew I didn’t just want to go to sleep. It was Friday night in Edinburgh! So I talked Waldo and Micah into hitting up an old pub in downtown Edinburgh to grab some authentic Scottish whisky with me.

Which we did – quite joyously!

And then we decided to wander around town to see bits and pieces of the castle in the dark, random cemeteries, and ancient gravestones. (And, while doing all of this, be serenaded by drunken Scotsmen wearing kilts, which I found to be particularly fantastic.)

And that’s about it for photos! The rest of the trip was filled with many, many planes, but was uneventful (which is a good thing!), and everyone arrived back to their respective homes safely and soundly. 

It goes without saying, I suppose, but I’m going to say it again. What a wonderful trip, a wonderful team and a fantastic company to get to work for. Can’t wait to see everyone again soon! 

And, meanwhile in photo business world:

On the Docket:

Portraits, intimate weddings, editorial work and more! Stay tuned!

Cheers,

-Kristine

Recently, Groovy Guy Gifts sent me some whiskey stones in the mail and asked me to write up a review of them – so here it is! The Groovy Guy Gifts Whiskey Stones review.

Perhaps you haven’t heard of whiskey stones before? If that’s the case and you’re wondering why on earth you’d put rocks in your drink, the main purpose is that you can use whiskey stones in place of ice to keep your drink of choice cool, all without watering it down. (You know, since stones don’t melt.)

I’ve actually been curious about whiskey stones for a while since I seem to always forget to fill the ice cube trays in my freezer, so I was eager to see how I’d like these and if they’d live up to their desired purpose.

First, the whiskey stones that Groovy Guy Gifts sell have the option for personalization, and you can personalize each of the 6 stones differently. I decided to add that onto mine to see what that would look like. The stones are about ice cube size (they measure 1″ x 1″), so the fewer characters you add per stone, the easier they’ll be able to read. (If you scroll down a bit you can see that the word “Photography” is pretty tiny in comparison to all the other stones with fewer characters.) You can personalize each stone with 2 lines of up to 9 characters per line.

The stones arrived in a little muslin bag and came with instructions for use which are as follows:

1. Wash rocks with soap and water, dry completely and place in muslin bag. Put in the freezer (3 hrs)

2. Place rocks in dram of whiskey or glass of wine to chill beverage without watering it down.

3. Can also be heated to keep drinks warm (please use caution when heating and handling).

4. Whiskey rocks never wear out, they are dishwasher and food safe.

5. For adult use only, please keep away from children due to choking hazard. Use at own risk.

To be honest, I was a little bummed that I had to chill them for so long before trying them out. But once they were washed and chilled, I decided to test them out in a glass of ginger ale. (Yes, I know, not whiskey.)

And they definitely did the trick! I only needed to add three to my glass, so the added benefit is that you could use all 6 to chill down a couple glasses of your beverage of choice.

While, overall, I like these stones and I think they could make for a nice gift, I did have a few minor things that didn’t quite jive with me:

First, these are marketed to guys. I’m very much NOT a guy. But I drink whiskey. And I like these stones. I’d like to see the marketing (and the instruction card that came with the stones) be less guy-centric. Women like whiskey too!

Secondly, they do smell like stone. Granted, I have a very sensitive sense of smell and taste, but upon their arrival I could tell that, yup, they are definitely rocks. So I wondered, would my drink taste like rocks too? As it turns out, yes, very, very faintly. I’m still not sure if this is a dealbreaker for me, so keep that in mind if you are purchasing these.

Because of this, it also got me wondering – what kind of stone are these made out of? Is it manufactured stone? Is it real stone that’s been shaped? Could anything be leaching out of the stones into my drink? I’m not sure. I’d certainly hope they’re safe to use in drinks and don’t leach out anything harmful, but I guess I’d like to know more about what exactly I’m putting into my drink. The card doesn’t mention this, but after looking at their website again, it appears the rocks are made of 100% soapstone.

The instructions mention you can heat them. Yikes – I’m not sure I’d ever want to try that. I’ve been around enough campfires with river rock rings and have seen those puppies EXPLODE into shards of rock shrapnel, so I’m super hesitant to heat up any kind of rock. Perhaps you’re braver than I am, though.

All in all, despite the things I just mentioned, these whiskey stones are a nice product, and I’ll be eager to hear Groovy Guy Gifts address my above-mentioned caveats.

If you’d like to purchase your own stones, you can get them here for $34.99.

Please note: I received these stones from Groovy Guy Gifts in exchange for an honest review. 

On the Docket:

Editorial shoots, a trip to the UK, elopements, portraits and more! Stay tuned!

Cheers,

-Kristine

I spent the past week in San Francisco working, and had my life totally and completely changed – but I didn’t divulge to anyone what kind of work I was doing because…well. Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?

And by beginning, I mean, the very beginning.

I’ve always been an artistic, creative person. The more ways I can find to express myself creatively, the happier I am. Whether that’s through painting, clay and pottery, drawing, knitting, sewing, writing, photography or web design, etc. – I like it all.

Waaaaay back in the stone ages (ok, perhaps not quite that long ago), I dabbled in web design by writing simple, basic HTML. While I was in high school, my family had come across a lost, abused dog who needed a home and I thought – aha! I can make a website for him to try to find his owner! We never did find his owner (which worked out because we ended up adopting his silly little self, thus enriching all our lives), and in the process of all of this lost-dog-not-lost-dog-stuff, I found that I really liked what one could do with web design.

Fast forward some years, and again, I found myself designing a website. This time for my master’s thesis in photojournalism. I had found a program (Freeway Pro or something along those lines) that allowed me to custom design a site the way I wanted it to look (not the way website templates thought it should look) and it was great! I didn’t have to hand write code! But it was still early on in this type of visual design. It worked, but it was more clunky than it was awesome, and it definitely had its limitations.

Zip ahead a few more years, and again, I needed to design another website – this time for my photo business I had decided to promote to a full time operation. Again, I used another program that was a visual designer by proxy of Photoshop (SiteGrinder was the name). But it was bloated and pretty painful to use. However, it still allowed me the freedom to stay away from templates and coding. But to my chagrin, its developers pulled the plug and I was left looking for another design platform to use. (I guess I’m stubborn and didn’t want to spend precious time learning code.)

Enter Adobe Muse. I (mostly) happily used that program for years up until April of 2018 when (again!) it was added to the growing heap of other programs that had its development and support removed. So there I was again. Looking for another design program. Again. And, of course, it was literally about two days before I was about to go live with a new site I’d designed in Muse. So I found myself tearing my hair out and frantically searching for something that could replace Muse.

Cue Webflow’s entry stage left and Muse’s serendipitous exit stage right.

After poking around some Muse help groups where I, along with many other web designers, were absolutely freaking out about Adobe’s announcement, suggestions for alternatives began coming in. And one of them was Webflow.

So I checked it out. Suspiciously. Remember that heaping pile of abandoned visual web design programs? I was bound and determined to not be hung out to dry yet again.

So I began investigating it. Trepidatiously. Dipping my toe in here and there. Wary of what it offered.

But as I explored more and more of what the program offers designers, the more I liked it and the less suspicious I became. This seemed like one heckuva solid product. Their documentation blew…just BLEW…me away. The videos outlining their program had me in awe. I specifically remember thinking to myself that if a company could invest time and energy into making educational videos as spectacular as these, then it really was doing something fantastically right. And I wanted to know more. In fact, I wanted to throw my money at a company like that.

I jumped into their user forums because I had many, many questions to ask once I decided I’d design my site using Webflow. And, once again, I was blown away. The fellow designers on that forum and the moderators I encountered were so kind, open, and eager to help me, even when my questions were totally newbie silliness (sidenote: everyone starts somewhere – newbie silliness is ok!).

I began geeking out and telling my friends and family about Webflow. “It’s super cool! And I can do the most amazing things with it!” Kindly, they listened to my nerdy soliloquies. My terror at leaving Muse had been replaced with a sense of gratitude and joy. Sometimes big, scary changes are the kick in the pants we need to find something better. Thanks, Adobe, for kicking Muse to the curb. You changed the entire course of my life.

Fast forward a bit, and summer began and my busy season started up. I worked on my website on slower days and into the wee hours of the morning because I had made a promise to myself that I was going to get a new website up sooner rather than later, no matter what.

Finally, September rolled around. I had (mostly) finished my website to the point where it was acceptable to go live. So I published my brand spankin’ new site that I had put so many, many hours into, shared it with the world, and then also shared it within Webflow.

Remember that forum I mentioned earlier? They have a show and tell category within it where designers can share their most recent projects. There’s also a showcase area for users in another section of their website where projects can be shared with the community there as well.

Before I knew it, I began to receive the most incredible feedback. People were blown away. I was blown away by how blown away they were. I was giddy! They were giddy! We were all so very, very giddy! My website was in the top list of the most popular sites showcased on Webflow. I seriously couldn’t believe the response I was receiving. I mean, I liked my site, but I never in a million years expected it to garner the attention it did.

And then, literally one day after I shared my finished site on the forums and in the showcase area, I received an e-mail from Webflow asking me if I’d be interested in talking with them about a potential job with them.

I. Was. Floored.

Say whaaaaa?!?! This amazing company might want me to work for them? No way. No way in a billion years, no waaaaay. This can’t be real!

But it totally, totally was.

Since September, I’ve had several video chat/interviews, I made another website in four days explaining why Webflow should hire me, they invited me out to their San Francisco office to do a trial week with them (which was the most fantastic whirlwind week of amazing people, packing my brain with all sorts of new things, oodles of laughter, incredible camaraderie, lots of excitement, the most Lyft rides ever, and on and on), and……drum roll please….

I got the job!

I think a lot of people may be pretty surprised by this. Maybe even a little shocked. To be honest, I kind of am too, but at the same time I’m also not.

Here’s why:

I love my photo business. I always have. I always will. More importantly, I love my clients, many of whom I can call friends. Seriously – it’s the best job in the world. I still stand by that.

But Webflow is in a tie for the best job in the world too. It offers me things my photo business cannot. I will get to have co-workers again – and they are some of the most incredible people ever. I don’t say that lightly. I know I’ve been a bit loquacious in this blog post and that it’s full of superlatives, but I truly mean every word of its superlative-y goodness (did I just do that? Yes, yes I did).

The people at Webflow are so dedicated to being good people, doing good things with their work and their lives, and they constantly encourage and help one another to bring everyone up higher together. It really is unlike anything I’ve ever seen at a company. And I love it. Not only that, they feel the same about their product and its goals in the world too. I can totally get behind that.

These folks are so highly intelligent, some of the wittiest, most fun people I’ve met, and genuinely, genuinely care. As I said previously, it was a whirlwind of a week with a lot thrown at me to tackle, and while it initially was overwhelming (not going to lie), the culture of the company and the genuine hearts of my co-workers meant that every step of the way I felt embraced, listened-to, and cared for. And I know it’s not for show and will continue on into my employment. I still cannot believe I get to work with this company.

In addition to the people at Webflow and the company itself, it offers benefits that I’d never be able to get by running my own business. There are a lot of photographers out there who have part of the burden of running a business alleviated by a spouse or a partner. I have neither (perhaps one day I’ll find the right guy! here’s hoping!), so right now it’s just little ol’ me running the entire ship. Hence, the benefits that come along with this new job are a HugeBigGiantDeal to me too.

I’ll have a regular paycheck. I will actually be able to go to the doctor when I need to, because I’ll have health insurance that actually covers things and I won’t have to sell organs to afford it (kidding kidding – I still retain all my organs). I can take vacations! I will be able to travel more! I’ll be able to take on more photojournalism work and not feel guilty about accepting the low pay they typically offer. And I’ll get to do all this while still maintaining my home-base in Missoula because I’ll be working remotely for Webflow (pretty rad, right?! – strike that – unbelievably, amazingly rad!).

While I love my photography business and all of my clients, the nitty-gritty details of running a business can sometimes be a challenge to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

So, all this to say: yes, I’ll be working at Webflow now. But I will still be working as a photographer, too.

Which leads me to another reason I love this company. Webflow realizes I have a true passion for photography and the people with whom I get to work. They don’t want me to give that up and they’ve made it so I can still make that happen too. (This was something I thought about long and hard as I considered taking this job.)

Which means, yes the structure of my business will change slightly, but not to its detriment or yours. Here’s what might change:

• I’ll need to be more selective in the number of shoots I can do, since I cannot humanly work a bazillion hours a week, which simply means: I can absolutely do your shoot, but we’ll need to plan ahead for it so we can both get it on the calendar, that’s all!
• It may take me just a touch longer to respond to your messages, which means: I’ll still answer all your questions and notes, of course, but I’ll just have a more limited timetable in which to do it.
• That’s it. Really nothing more than that.

Here’s what won’t change:

• How much, much, much I care about my clients and making sure you have the best experience possible. That won’t change at ALL. It’s core to who I am and how I run my business.
• How much I love photography. It’s got my heart forever.
• How much I love documenting your lives. Doing this gives me life and always will.
• My home-base in Montana. Yep, I’m not moving to San Francisco. I’ll still be right here in Montana.

So, to sum it all up, and that was a lot, I’ve got a new job, which will coexist with my photography job. I love them both equally and I adore all of you.

I’m super stoked for this new step in my life, and I’m excited for you to join me on it! Thanks for hanging in there with this long post, and here’s to embracing positive change and new life adventures!! :)

And, because it would be weird not to share a few photos, here are some from my week in San Francisco (yes, I take selfies, too – haha!)

Cheers!
-Kristine

A little boat scooting across the very smoky bay in front of Alcatraz.

It’s hilly in SF. Ships were decorated for Veterans’ Day.

A Western Gull chills in the orange, smoky light of the afternoon as sea lions bask in the sun.

Did I mention it was smoky in SF while I was there? The Golden Gate Bridge barely peeked through the haze.

The first night I arrived in SF, my friend from high school, whom I haven’t seen in far too long, made a 2-hour drive to meet up with me for a delicious dinner! Such a great time catching up with her and laughing our heads off, and the carnitas and flan were pretty darn incredible. Thanks again, Carrie, for zipping over to see me! :)

The first day of my trial week I got to go to the California College of the Arts where two of my fellow employees were presenting about Webflow to curious students – I had a chance to tell them a little about my site, too! On the right, as the smoke and air quality worsened, my Airbnb hosts gave all their guests respirator masks to use.

Each morning I’d walk to work at Webflow’s office and get to pass by some really awesome, colorful street art.

Webflow’s office is really an amazing place to work. Open and full of natural light, plants, comfy chairs, snacks and standing desks, it makes for a great work environment. Wish I could transport it to Montana!

A San Francisco trolley at night.

A ferry boat waits along the piers as the Bay Bridge boasts its own light show in the background.

I had just a TON of fun walking along the bay with fellow Webflow-er and amazing, amazing magician (yes, you read that right – magician!), Magic Mark. What a blast! Thanks for putting up with me and all my photos, Mark! SO nice to meet you IRL! :)

Mark made sure I ended up in a few photos too – we certainly had a good time being goofy! Haha!

I had the chance to meet up with my cousin, Jon, and his fiancée, Amanda, and they were so generous to treat me to an incredible meal and drinks at Mourad in the Financial District. It was so great to see Jon, since the last time I saw him was in 2013! Egads!

Click the image above to check out a fun little website I put together to feature this image. :)

Last, but not least, these wonderful people toasted to my new hire status with champagne right before I had to zip off to the airport – such a wonderful end to an amazing week! (Pardon the blurriness – we were all laughing too much!)

This is how excited I am about joining Webflow – thumbs up all around! (P.S. My shirt reads: “Design Responsively” – yasssss.)

Et voila! That’s the end of the story for this past week, but just the start to this new adventure!

And, in the meantime, I’ve still got shoots going that will be hitting the blog soon, so stay posted for those! :)

Cheers!
-Kristine

The grass in my yard is about a foot tall. My garden is the definition of wild. I’m not entirely sure when I last cooked a real meal for myself. Suffice it to say, I’ve been busy. Editing photos, on shoots, out on photo-hiking-camping adventures in our beautiful state. Hanging with friends. Really making the most of summer and this gorgeous weather and all that comes with it. And, last, but certainly not least, in the free time I’ve found here and there in the very wee hours of the morning (because I will never not be a night owl), I’ve been plugging away redesigning my brand new website. And I. Am. SO. STOKED that it’s finally, finally live!

If you saw my initial post over on Instagram, I shared there that it’s been a work in progress for quite a long while. I think I might have been working on this new update for a couple years now. I swear, it wasn’t supposed to take this long. But the old website design program that I used (yes, I do all my own design – no templates here, no siree, Bob) pulled the plug on all its users out of the blue at the beginning of this year (ahem::coughcough::ADOBE). And they did it literally about a week before I was going to go live with my new design.

To say I was a little frustrated by that announcement is a bit of an understatement. There was much gnashing of teeth, clenching of jaws (wait a second, I only have one jaw!), and tearing of hair (ok, maybe not literally), and while that was beyond frustrating at the time, it ended up being a bit of a blessing in disguise. Turns out, I was able to find a much better, much more powerful program to use. While there was definitely a learning curve and a lot of trial and error in learning a totally new system from the ground up as quickly as I could possibly muster, it’s actually been (mostly) fun, mainly because packing the ol’ noggin with new stuff is kind of my jam. And voila! Now I’ve got a new website to boot! Those silver linings can be pretty darn nice sometimes.

So, I’d like to take a few moments and share some of my favorite little pieces from this new design, and include a little info about each, and invite you to go check out the new website for yourself, too! And, because this IS a business after all, I’m going to encourage you to share it with your friends as well, if you so desire. (And I do hope you so desire!)

Main Page Grid Load Up

One of the main reasons I’ve wanted to do this redesign is to get rid of my old homepage/landing page because that thing was kind of hideous. It worked initially when I first made it, but it bothered me more and more as the years ticked by. So hooooo boy am I glad I changed it up, because I really dig the look of this one and think it makes navigating around my site a heckuva lot easier than it had been. And I kinda like how it animates in with the name of my business arriving to the scene fashionably late (yes, that is intentional).

Tagline

Another part of my redesign was done to ensure people know what I’m about immediately. And an essential element in making that happen was figuring out a way to include my “tagline” into my design where it would be immediately eye catching. I struggled with this for a bit when I was working on the overall design. Did I want to overlay that text somewhere? Something told me I should, but my gut reaction just felt like that was a little too on the nose, and I didn’t want that text to just SIT there and overtake my photos (you know, because the whole photography thing is kind of important, too). Then a lightbulb went on – what if I could ANIMATE my tagline and make it fly onto the scene, wow folks with its grand entrance, and then fade away after doing its job? Hence, the animated tagline was born. And I love it.

Camera Menu Button

A lot of what makes good design, for me anyway, is paying attention to the small details. And I suppose that’s how I run my business too. I don’t like to let anything fall through the cracks. If I can make it better I will. And that philosophy held true for my menu button as well. For a long while it was actually a pretty boring little thing. It had the standard three, stacked horizontal lines with a hover effect of a standard hamburger menu icon. But that just wasn’t doing it for me for some reason. It was nice, but just not good enough. So I began to think. What would be fun? (Because I love fun!) What would be more engaging? (Because I love engaging!) And tah dah – the camera button came to mind. Now, you may look at this and go, no biggie. But let me tell you – there’s a lot of work that goes into that wee little thing. The whole button is built entirely out of lines and div blocks so it can be manipulated via a timed animation. Which means, when designing it, I needed to think “backwards.” As in, I knew I wanted the camera to turn into an X. So how do I build something that has components that can create an X, but also a camera at some point? Anyway, it’s a bit of a process, but suffice it to say it took some time, and I was pretty stoked when I got it to do what had been in my head. Yay for making a vision a reality! (Side Note: If you look closely there is a shameful number of browser tabs open in that screenshot. Haha! Anyone else as addicted to millions of browser tabs as I am? Eeeep!)

Side Nav Jump to Section

I also hemmed and hawed for a while about the actual structure of my site. Would I create separate pages for each of the different photograph genres I shoot? And then separate about and contact and investment (etc., etc., etc.) pages for each of them too? It just seemed like a boatload of pages that I probably didn’t need. So I figured I’d make a page for each genre and break it into its pertinent sections. But those long, scrolling pages can sometimes be a pain in the rear to navigate through if, let’s say, you’ve already read through the content, but you know you want to zip right back to the images section to look at those more closely. While I realize scrolling up a few inches isn’t really going to kill anyone or damage any sensitive scroll fingers, why not make it easier to navigate, and – here we go again – more fun?! So I decided to build side navigation. Now this thing…I think I may have blocked it from my memory…because it was fairly challenging to build and subsequently animate. There is a LOT that’s going on there. Links that need to hit certain sections and highlight depending on which section is active, the little dots need to fly in gracefully and land in the appropriate places, and it needs to be mobile-friendly as well. So it took a long time to build. But it’s functional, fun to use, and, I think, adds a nice element to the navigation of my page.

Clicked Gallery Images

One of the main things I knew I wanted when making my new site was a really nice layout of some of my favorite images I wanted to highlight. While image slideshows have their purpose and are nice, sometimes those favorite images can get kind of buried. And it always tugs at my heartstrings a bit when a good image gets buried! (This must hearken back to my newspaper days when a story and its images would go from being slated for A1 front page and then get buried in the inside of the B-section somewhere. The ol’ heartstrings are a little sensitive! But, I digress.) Basically I wanted to show a nice chunk of imagery where you could visually see it all laid out, and where none of the images were cropped. (I’m pretty specific about how I shoot – I rarely ever crop my photos after the fact because I compose and “crop in camera.” So when an image gets its top chopped off or what have you, it just doesn’t look right to me.) I had to do a little digging to make this one work for me. It also required some code-work and quite a bit of finagling to get it to work EXACTLY how I envisioned, but I’m really happy with it now, and think it’s a good addition to my pages. I also wanted folks to be able to click into each of those tiled images to be able to view them “one-on-one” and see them a little larger if need be. This also required some code-work and a lot of finagling, but again I made it work and I’m glad I made sure to add this feature into the image sections as well.

FAQ Disclosure Arrow

This one gets chalked up to one of those small features that maybe people will miss, but is an attention-to-detail kind of thing. FAQ sections can be kind of lengthy and miserable to look at since basically it’s just a giant wall of text. Most people take one look at a FAQ section and skip it entirely. So I wanted to make mine more engaging, and hopefully a little less text-wall-like. The expanding FAQ questions was something that also took quite a bit of time to create and finesse. But it’s worth it, in my opinion. I knew I wanted a smooth transition to the answer part of the FAQ, and I also wanted an arrow to indicate that it had been opened. Similar to the camera menu, this was all built with little div blocks that were then animated. And I kind of love them. I also sort of dig how they gently fly onto the page to sidle up to their corresponding question. Perhaps they remind me of little birds?

Bouncy About Arrows

I love fun, interactive things. So I knew that when I was recreating my “About” page from my previous site that I wanted the up and down arrows to sport a bit more pizazz. Enter, bouncy arrows! These were also totally designed in pieces, and were pretty fun to get juuuuuust right (as Goldilocks might say). I’m still on the fence about the overall design of the Meet Kristine page, and I may change that in the future, but for now, it works, and the bouncy arrows just add a little extra shot of happiness. (I’m curious: what do you think about the Meet Kristine page? Like it? Hate it? Lemme know!)

Before/After Slider

I’ve been wanting to make a before/after slider image for a long while now, and when creating my new Headshots page, I knew this is where that slider would live. I wanted to show folks how I retouch – subtly but naturally, so this was the perfect way to use this feature. And I think it’s pretty nifty.

Editorial Wipe Intro

Again, this isn’t a huge element, but it’s one of those attention-to-detail things. I brand myself differently for my editorial work, so I wanted the pages (and that “site”) to feel a little different too. Enter, the cool page wipe transition. It just adds a little more of a neat presentation when moving from page to page. Sort of like a semi-dramatic reveal. And I like reveals. And semi-drama.

Editorial Magazine Hover

There is such a thing as too much text on a page. I can definitely be guilty of this because: word-nerd. So when there’s something I want to put text on (which is usually), I try to think if there’s a way it can be included in a bit more of a subtle manner. That’s part of the reason I love these hovers over the magazine covers on my editorial page. They’re just kinda sexy, doncha think? (Can words and hovers be sexy? Discuss amongst yourselves.)

Placeholder Contact Modal

Last but not least is this little contact pop up modal. As much as I’d love to say that every last little square inch of my site is complete, it’s just not. And I knew I wanted it to go live way before I’d have a chance to finish up my last few pages, so I needed a placeholder of sorts for the pages that weren’t finished. But I also wanted them to look cool and still be fun to use. Enter, pop up modal. Kinda neat, eh?

So there you have it! A little behind-the-scenes into what I’ve been up to! Please, share with friends, and if you see any weird bugs or bad links or what have you, shoot me a note – it’s nice to know when things are misbehaving! (But hopefully that won’t be the case!)

On the Docket:

Weddings, portraits and elopements! Stay tuned!

Cheers,

-Kristine

A while back I received a photography backdrop to check out from the company Photo Pie Backdrops, which is based out of Burley, Idaho. (Hey neighbors!) I’m finally just now getting a chance to check it out, and thought I’d write up a quick Photo Pie backdrop review since the company was kind enough to send this to me at no charge (thanks guys!).

Typically I don’t use a ton of backdrops since I generally don’t spend a whole lot of time shooting “set up” scenarios. What this means is that I’m usually photographing people in spaces without making any additions or adjustments of my own because I’m documenting them as they are. Or I’m shooting outside and don’t really need a backdrop (yay for Montana’s stunning natural backdrops! – holla!). However, every now and again it’s good to have a backdrop on hand to clean up a background or to help make a subject pop.

I opted for Photo Pie’s “Neutral Old Master’s Backdrop” since I just wanted something simple and classic. Upon receiving it, I opened the package, removed the backdrop from its zippered plastic bag and then set it up. I was actually pretty surprised at how green/blue it appeared since it looked as though from the photo on their website that it’d be more of a tan/gray combo (and I initially thought they had sent me the wrong one). However, it was indeed the correct backdrop and I can see that there are definitely blue/green tones in it that I simply just didn’t pick up on when I was perusing their backdrop options. Thankfully, this wasn’t a dealbreaker for me since I’m a huge fan of the blue/green shift that’s going on in this backdrop. (Though I would love to test out and shoot on a more neutral gray/tan option too!)

I did a quick self-portrait photo shoot to test out the backdrop (sorry that you have to be subjected to my crazy faces here, but self portraits are NOT easy to do – ha!).

Also, sidenote: my poor mailman seriously must think I’m some sort of special…the wacky laughing faces are *after* I realized what he’d just had to witness – and it’s not the first time this has happened – oh my!

You can see how nicely that green/blue shift moves through the background and how the subtle printed texture looks especially lovely in the bokeh of my lens. Not too much texture in the background and not too little – juuuuust right. A Goldilocks moment!

The backdrop itself is pretty standard, is well made, and has a pocket for hanging on a stand – I ordered the backdrop in the “jersey cloth” fabric option which boasts wrinkle resistance. According to Photo Pie’s website, their jersey cloth can be described as:

JerseyCloth: Similar to durable sweatshirt material (but not stretchy), JerseyCloth backgrounds offer a seamless, machine washable, the most wrinkle-resistant, more affordable, alternative to InspiraCloth. JerseyCloth is a heavyweight material with a soft, knapped backing. Colorfast image while still making it washable/dryable. Since it is made for photography, image surface has a non-glare matte finish. Because of JerseyCloth’s wrinkle-free nature, it can be stored folded, rolled, or stuffed in a bag/plastic crate. Comes with a top-side rod pocket, ships folded. If we could summarize its texture, JerseyCloth is: soft and flannely.

While I don’t agree that this is entirely wrinkle-free cloth (if it’s folded the fold lines will show, albeit not terribly badly), it’s still a nice fabric. And when storing this, I’ll likely roll it up to try my best to keep any wrinkles/folds out of it. It is definitely glare-free and that’s super important to me in a backdrop, so I certainly appreciated that. (Glare is a surefire way to destroy a good photo if you’ve got a backdrop set up behind your subject, and especially if you’re using off camera lighting!)

As evident in the shots above, that texture is really lovely and subtle and doesn’t overpower the subject.

The particular backdrop that was sent to me was the 8’x10′ size, so not huge, but not small either. Another thing I appreciate about this backdrop is its weight – it’s not crazy heavy and packs down pretty small, so it will be super easy to move from location to location, which is always a plus since it’s just me, myself and I schlepping my gear everywhere in my tiny car.

In the screenshot below, you can see what the backdrop looks like with the focus on it instead of the subject (i.e. it’s not fading away into the background). Also, check out the free shipping Photo Pie offers – if you don’t need a backdrop lickety split, then this is a really nice bonus as well since shipping can add up for heavier packages.

One of the other added benefits of this backdrop is how well it transitions over to black and white applications. That subtle texture looks really great in black and white as well and gives the image just another added dimension. It would feel pretty flat without that subtle texture provided by the backdrop.

See how nice and subtle that texture shows up in the above-left image? And then how nicely it just falls off as the subject steps farther away from the backdrop? (See above-right image.) It looks good! See below for another black and white example (also, hellooooo freckles!).

All in all, I’m a fan of what Photo Pie sent me. As I mentioned before, backdrops aren’t a huge part of my photography workflow and don’t use them often, but I do appreciate the classic options, and will likely consider purchasing more from this company in the future (I’m particularly curious about their solid color options).

And now – back to your regularly scheduled programming! On the docket: portraits, editorial shoots and weddings! Stay tuned!

Cheers!

-Kristine