Why I Photograph Interiors | Seattle Real Estate + Home Editorial Photographer

February 26, 2022 in interiors

I spent most of the year 2020 scrolling Zillow. We had sold our house in Chicago and were feeling desperate to get out of our apartment building and into a home. With the pandemic, we changed a lot of our plans, including accelerating our family planning. The urge to settle in and make actual roots in Seattle after sooo many years of renting got REAL.

We spent every weekend driving around neighborhoods, my belly growing, John growing, and wondering if I’d get that tingly *this is it* feeling. It was thrilling and exhausting.

We finally found our place and have been renovating for the last year. It’s a work in progress but it’s ours. And now, after having gone through that, I’m tracing a line backwards in my life: interiors and homes have always been significant to me.

As a little kid my mom and I would visit open houses, mentally arranging furniture and imagining the possibilities. I played with dolls but stopped after extensively setting up their homes with found objects. The Sims happened and I could be found in the basement doggedly designing and cheat-coding so I could afford the *best* wallpaper (IYKYK). Preparing for my future home began in my teens when I’d collect vintage Pyrex and antique secretary desks. A table I snagged from @crateandbarrel became the first item that moved in with my (now) husband.

It’s always been there. And now I’m welcoming homes and spaces into my work more than ever. Shooting interiors brings me a joy I can’t explain. Our spaces are so important. Think about some of your best memories, are they attached to a home?

I have so much to say on this and will continue to explore and share with you. Thank you for coming along with me!

Photos for @thedigs.co (who just shared a big and exciting update yesterday!)

Colorful and Cheeky AirBnB in Cle Elum | Seattle Interiors Photographer

February 24, 2022 in interiors

When I’m looking for a quick and easy getaway from the gray rainy Seattle weather, I’m always up for the beautiful drive across Snoqualmie Pass and over to Eastern Washington. Cle Elum and the surrounding area is the perfect stone’s throw for a weekend trip. With a beautiful lake and mountains leading slowly to desert, it’s a visual wonderland and always helps me hit reset. That’s why I jump at any opportunity to work with The Digs Co., a real estate and vacation rental company that has the BEST hosted and co-hosted sites across the pass. I met Chelsea, the founder, years back and we stayed in touch as our businesses grew and evolved. I first stayed at her first rental, Roslyn Digs, when I was expecting my first son. I’ll never forget how I enjoyed those peaceful mornings and shooting the brand new space with a cup of coffee in hand.

Fast forward almost four years (and now with a second baby!) I’d been following their progress with this super cute spot. Chelsea’s design sense is so spot on and you can tell the theme of this was FUN. I love all the pops of color in the house, from the emerald green velvet chairs to the neon pink hand hook in the bathroom, to the retro comic tile in the shower. The art in this space is so fun and playful, and as soon as you step outside you’re enveloped by towering pines and a whisper-quiet roaming yard space. I’m setting my sights on a little solo refresh retreat there soon.

Enjoy Shin Digs, and book it here!

Seattle Engagement Photography Session at Discovery Park

February 17, 2022 in engagement

If you’re planning a wedding, it’s a ton of work and sometimes can be stressful. One thing that feels like a highlight during all of this is enjoying your engagement session. It’s something that you can pretty easily check off your list, it gives you a great experience and memory, and it helps move you forward with other elements of wedding plans, like save-the-dates and a wedding website. I love getting to enjoy this stage with my couples because it feels truly celebratory.

Even though you might not think it at first, your photo session is actually a great chance to spend some quality time together and just focus on one another. Obviously, getting beautiful and candid photos of your relationship is a huge plus, too! For 99.9% of my couples, their engagement session is the first time ever being photographed professionally. So amidst all the excitement you might feel slightly nervous about a camera being around your personal space and story. As a photographer who shoots a lot of weddings, elopements and engagement sessions, I feel like my secret weapon is to help put you at ease and create a space where you can really just be yourself and trust that I’ll find the beauty in that and turn it into great photos. It doesn’t hurt that living in Seattle gives us so many beautiful PNW locations to get the setting just right, too.

Enjoy this sunny session at Discovery Park!

Modern Boho Garden Wedding at Stonehouse 101 & Cle Elum

December 13, 2021

Getting to know my couples during the wedding planning process is one of the most rewarding parts of my job, but even more rewarding is when I do work with clients from other areas of my life. Case in point: my husband has a music school in Seattle (Sound Music School, look it up!), and Scott had been a student for a while. Scott is also a mortgage broker and helped us buy our house earlier this year. When he and Theresa got engaged, one thing led to another and soon we were going down the wedding road together, too! Love keeping it all in the family. :)

Theresa floored me with the amount of countless hours she poured into her wedding details. She did basically everything you see with her amazing mom. The love that went into those hours was really tangible. This was really a day created around her vision of bringing her loved ones together in a beautiful setting to witness something even more beautiful. Their ceremony left everyone in a fit of laughter and tears as the afternoon sun glowed into the Stonehouse 101 garden yard in Roslyn, just over 1.5 hours from Seattle. (What an amazing crew there, by the way.)

Driving across Snoqualmie Pass on their wedding day was one of those perfect Seattle/PNW fall days where the sun lit up the just-beginning-to-change foliage and shone brilliantly off of Lake Cle Elum where they got ready in a large cabin overlooking the water. Something I loved is that they opted for a first look, but privately. Usually I’m there to capture those moments but Theresa wanted it to be just the two of them. I really respected that notion of a true moment of peace between them before the busy day set in. After that, the bridal party made its way down the steep, steep rocky slope down to the lake where the wind nearly killed us but the photos nearly killed me. ;D

I captured this wedding on a blend of digital and film, both shown here. I shoot most weddings on a hybrid, and have been using more and more film lately. It’s such a beautiful way to add a little modern nostalgia and a classic vibe to your wedding day photography, especially in Seattle where the blues and greens that are so beautifully represented in film can really bloom.