Joshua spent his childhood in Colorado, and moved to Ohio when he was ten (and I was eight). Both of our moms became friends the year that they moved here, and because of that, so did we. Growing up, I was mainly friends with his younger sister, but in our middle teens (about 14 and 15), Joshua and I started to secretly crush on each other.

We kept that secret from one another for years. We didn’t know we liked each other until I was 19 and he was 20…and that’s when we started dating. We only dated a year before we got engaged, and then six months later we were married…and now we’ve been married for eight and half years.

We both feel so thankful to be married to our best friend, and can’t imagine our life any other way.

I was born when my parents were working in Yosemite National Park. They loved the outdoors and our nations national parks and spent a lot of their lives moving from park to park to live and work. I spent the majority of my childhood living in Rocky Mountain National park in Colorado, where my mom took me and my siblings on “field trips” in Colorado’s wilderness often. This started my love for the mountains; I was captivated by the lifestyle of the wild.
Art (like photography) was never part of my life growing–up, but thinking back, it did have a huge impact on my life. I distinctly remember watching a documentary of a wildlife photographer who went to the Yukon Territory to capture the big horns, and although at the time I had no interest in photography, his work gave me a dream to travel more and to see these landscapes and wildlife, untouched by modern infrastructure.

Fast forward many years…

When Eastlyn and I got married she was already doing a lot of photography gigs, AND we were both also working separate full time jobs. Because of this, we weren’t able to spend as much time as we wanted together. So she invited me to start coming with her as the “caddy.” I enjoyed this at first, but it didn’t take long before I felt awkward—imagining her clients and their guests thinking “what is this guy doing here, eating our food and not really doing anything for us?” ha!

I then took one of Eastlyn’s old cameras (that didn’t actually work) so I could at least look official. This did not work out very well either. People started asking me to take their pictures, and I always had to run and find Eastlyn to get the shot. It didn’t take much convincing from Eastlyn that I should just learn photography. I started shadowing her right away and loved watching her work. After every session, we sat down together and she showed me things that I could do better next time—teaching me one thing at a time to think about for our next session. I specifically remember the first time Eastlyn used an image of mine for a preview, and I felt like I finally made it.

Some photographers have a natural eye for all things photography. I did not. Everything I know is because of people, mainly Eastlyn, teaching me this skill…(plus a lot of failing, trial and error and preservation). But the more I photographed, the more I saw art in this world differently. I see light differently, I see abstract art differently, I see nature and wildlife differently. The more I saw the world differently, the more I wanted to create through photography. And now in other forms of art, like leather working (Legacy Envelope).

But since the beginning, my favorite part of photographing weddings, is the chance to see people at some of the happiest moments of their lives; it spills over into my life because I feel like I am a part of these moments.

When we started this business together, we were only photographing local events, but over the last 8 years, we both knew we wanted to grow our business for destination work because we both already loved traveling and hiking mountainous places. It took a lot of time, self-education, and work, but we now get to photograph about 70% of our work at travel destinations.

Honestly, no. Because of the nature of how we came to work together, we both already know our strengths in this business.
We balance each other so well. He’s extraverted, I’m introverted. He’s relational, I’m more business-minded. What Joshua is really good at, I tend to lack in, and vice-versa. So leading into the next question, how we work together is very organic. There was never really a question to who does what in the business…it came natural, and now it’s our rhythm.

Understand and appreciate your partner’s strengths, and allow them to be in charge of what their best at.

Then let go and trust your partner to do it.

Yes. As you already read, we were pretty young when we got married. We wanted a big party and so we invited everyone we ever knew. It was insane. We didn’t even get to eat our own cake or spend any time together because we were talking to all our guests.

Now we know we would do something intimate with a sit down meal with just our immediate families/best friends.

But a wedding is only one day. We don’t look back with regret, just laughs at our young naivety.

We’re married and that’s all that really matters.

I became the annoying sibling of the family that interrupted the local news hour and movie night to drag my family outside whenever I observed something I thought was breathtaking and wanted to share with them. For the longest time I believed that I was destined to be a storm chaser when I grew up. But when I was a young teenager, I discovered photography. It became a vehicle for me to translate my sky induced feelings, to capture what I loved so much and to have a way to share those scenes with others who were not present in the moment with me.

I think all those years lying under the sky gave me a deep appreciation for the way light moves on our world, and even in the smallest ways, it brings wonder. Being able to capture glimpses of it is something I don’t take for granted.

One of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, wrote, “…let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.”

If we approach every session and wedding (our work) with the mindset of first being astonished, how much more wonder and beauty do you think we could capture through our lenses?
Every day, every person, every story is remarkable and beautiful and a gift.

When we approach our work with this mindset, our attention needs to focus on the present. To us, this is an incredible application to all of life. Being present to those we interact with every day is crucial to living fully and people matter more than anything. This is the reason we love this job so much—telling others' one of a kind stories with our cameras is an honor. It’s about them—and this is where we’ve found our why behind what we do. Being intentional about being present to the honor set in front of us as photographers is the greatest thing we can do for any couple. …treating each wedding day as if it’s the only wedding, because it is to them.

And honestly, we are probably most inspired by one another.
I may have taught Joshua the power of creativity and art, and to do both well we must learn to be fully present, but he’s taught me so much more about what that means. He’s taught me that we can’t be islands, and in order to live fully, we must love others fully. I’ve taught him to be still, and he’s taught me how to be active and passionately in love with people—by example he’s taught me how to love them selflessly, and through patience I’ve taught him how to appropriately love himself. I’ve taught him how to see and feel wonder in the quiet, and he’s taught me how to see and feel it in relationships.I can’t imagine where I would be without him. Without him, my life would look completely different, even somewhat void. I love who he is and who I am with him. Out of all the places I’ve experienced, his deep, deep heart will forever be my favorite.

I’m inspired by wild nature and northern landscapes, Yosemite, old architecture, the stars, and so many artists.

And daily, I’m sharpened, encouraged and inspired by my friends Chase (Chasing Father), Cory Breth (Cory Breth Music), and Caleb;

But my number one inspiration is my wife, Eastlyn. She believes in my dreams and gets all my jokes.