I am always just so tickled when the people I get to photograph add personal, meaningful elements to their sessions. And Nichole and Zef’s Missoula Montana college graduation images certainly had that in spades!

To celebrate her college graduation from Carroll College in Helena and pay homage to her Navajo roots, Nichole’s grandmother made her dress for her. And when I say made, I mean MADE. Not only did she sew it for Nichole, she WOVE it. Talk about super, super special!

Thankfully, despite it being an overcast day, we didn’t get rained out for any of Nichole or Zef’s images. As we meandered from location to location, Nichole and Zef filled me in a bit more about themselves. Nichole will be graduating with a focus on biology and communications, and Zef will have a degree in English. The two met at Carroll and are super excited about their futures.

We had such a fantastic time making their images, and when it came time to capture moments between the two of them together, I could barely contain myself they are so darn sweet! We cracked up, giggled, and all-out guffawed together, which is basically what I live for in sessions.

Nichole and Zef! My goodness was it ever fun to make these images for you! Thank you so much for swinging down to Missoula and for being so supremely delightful to photograph! Here’s to a wonderful graduation celebration in a couple weeks, and to your very bright futures! Yay for newly-minted college graduates!

On the Docket:

Portraits and weddings coming your way! Stay tuned!

Cheers,

-Kristine

In early March I had the pleasure of heading north to photograph Cody Sifford for a Winds of Change magazine shoot. The Pohly Company out of Boston, Massachusetts had contacted me to shoot images of Cody who was their cover feature (along with a story inside). I always love doing editorial work (to hearken back to my photojournalism background), so I was super excited to hear how eager the Pohly Company was to work with me on this shoot.

Thankfully our shoot date didn’t get rained or snowed out due to the wet weather we’d been experiencing, so I met up with Cody to make some cover-worthy portraits to go along with his magazine feature. He was so great to work with despite being understandably a little nervous (magazine cover – no pressure, right?!), and was game to tromp around with me in search of cool locations, even though we had to wander through some mud puddles to get to the best spots.

As their description says on their website, “Winds of Change is the premier nationally distributed magazine published with a single-minded focus on career and educational advancement for American Indians/Alaska Natives/Native Hawaiians/First Nations, with an emphasis on STEM.”

Which is pretty cool, don’t you think? It was great meeting up with Cody and hearing more about his story as well, which you can read about in the latest Spring issue (scroll down to read Cody’s story, or you can read the entire magazine on the Winds of Change website).

Below I’ve included images from the magazine piece as well as other favorite images I made that didn’t end up in the publication. Enjoy! Thanks again to Winds of Change and Cody for a wonderful shoot!

On the docket: more editorial work and portraits! Stay tuned!

Cheers,

-Kristine