Best Photo. Ever.

I LOVE Mindy. To a lesser degree, I love photography. However, I have been frustrated for about three years because even though my skill has been consistently growing, I have never taken a picture of Mindy that she liked. Never.

Until now. I can't believe it, but she likes this one.

I 've made it. I'm a photographer.

Love you Mindy.

Five Years of Trips, Four Years of Tulips

Five years ago Mindy and I took our first trip to see the tulips in Mt. Vernon. I admit, after sitting in stand still traffic for two and a half hours just to see flowers we have in our front yard, I wasn't the most positive husband (or fiancee at that point).

Four years ago, we did the same thing. Stupid.

Three years ago, we wised up and went on a weekday night to avoid the traffic and decided to ride our bikes from field to field. It sounds perfect, until I add that we went a bit late in the season and got to experience field after field of beautiful, green, beheaded stems.

Finally, last year we went with our friends the Terpenings and the Aries and thanks to Dustin's back-road knowledge we didn't hit any traffic, and we had a pretty good time--for spending the afternoon looking at flowers.

This year Mindy and I decided to do things a bit differently and we paid to see the flowers. Normally, we are able to pull off the side of the road and see beautiful fields for free. However, since we'd had (or not had) that experience the last four years we figured we should see if paying to see a field yielded a better experience. For four bucks a piece, we weren't disappointed. Not only were there large fields of tulips to walk through, but the landscaped gardens were pretty amazing and they contained many different kinds of tulips.

Here is some of what we saw:

If I weren't a teacher and a photographer, I would like to name tulips:

Deanna and Tim's Engagment Session

Deanna's family has a ski cabin in Skykomish and she and Tim have spent quite a bit of time there. They wanted to have their engagement pictures taken along the Skykomish river, where Tim likes to fish, and it turned out to be an absolutely AMAZING location to shoot. The weather was perfect, we were right next to rapids, and it has special meaning to Deanna and Tim.

So for those of you thinking about getting portraits taken, take a tip from Deanna and Tim and select a meaningful location. It will make your portraits SO much better.

I experimented with adding a bit of texture to this one:

Deanna and Tim: Coming Up!

I'll get the rest of these up as soon as I can, but I wanted to get a preview of Deanna and Tim's engagement session posted as soon as I could. They were really fun to shoot with, laughing the entire time. More are definitely on the way!

Baby Bowker

I think I just need to start this post saying this: We love the Bowkers! Ever since they came into our lives about four years ago they have been a MAJOR source of encouragement, wisdom, and fun. Brian very routinely would thank me for leading worship at church with specific feedback, and he similarly has been encouraging my photography career every step of the way. Seriously, if you look back through the comments on various posts, you'll see him in about half of them.

So you can imagine how ecstatic I was when they told us they were pregnant! They are going to be amazing parents. It was an honor to capture their maternity pictures. Enjoy…


I know these first two are similar, I just couldn't choose between them. I love the "in between" moments. Those natural seconds in between poses are what I live for!

I tried to give the next two images a bit of a 70's photography feel. Brian and Kristi's quirky poses needed something a little extra to compliment them:

What a great moment... topped off by the little girl hiding in the bottom corner:

Kristi's expression is perfect here: