this is my story.

My story is one of sticky fingers and early morning sunrises. It's a yearly trip with all my family to our beloved Woodland resort; it's the smell of cider in the fall, the chill in the air as the apples are plucked from my grandpa's orchard, the steamy kitchen where we cut and stew them and make apple sauce. It's every last song and every new beginning, it's lying on a blanket outside in my grandparent's backyard watching the northern lights in the chill night, it's years of ballet and a box of pointe shoes.

My story is made up of my grandpa's art studio with paint jars in every color, of long walks with my family, of movie nights and heart to heart talks at home. It's albums of old photos and yearly get togethers, it's songs that are sung and trips that are taken. It's freckles on faces and Sunday's at grandma's and pages of sketches filled up with dreams. It's notebooks covered in writing, games played while laughing, flannel sweatshirts and birthday breakfasts at the pancake house. It's the days that I've cried, the years that I've grown, and the hopes that I've dared to hope.

My story is stacking rocks on the shores of cold Lake Superior and browsing the streets at Duluth. It's the smell of books musty with stories, the campfire under the dusky sky deep with stars, the cooking catastrophes and days spent reading. It's the smell of crepes in the morning as my family and I make breakfast, the slap of card games at the lake, the retreat where I sang. It's the family I love, the friends I adore, and the life that I truly believe is worth living for. 

That's my story...and it's still being written.

Stories are an integral part of my photography. Not the once upon a times but the stories you hear while sitting at a worn handmade wooden table, light filling the room and streaming from the windows, cookies littering every available surface. Icing in hand, when your grandma and aunts speak of when they were little and did just this. The stories of the everyday that are lost in the bigger picture -- yet so often, we forget that the big picture is made up of the little moments. These moments are the stories that make up the fabric of who we are. And they need to be told.

I've struggled with brand before, yet more and more, I realize that brand is not a pretty website or logo, but an identity -- one that is reflective of who you are and what you love. My style and my voice is a photojournalistic approach to real life and the stories that you have to tell. So I'd like to hear...what's yours?