We’re getting a little R&R! SHOCKER…ok maybe just a lil bit. We will be playing and working while in California this week. We’re actually headed out to see the dynamic duo Nate + Jaclyn of ‘the image is found‘ for a one on one workshop on Wednesday + a photoshoot of us on Thursday! Ekkkkkk….so THRILLED. I set this up way back in December as a surprise to Eric for his birthday. If there’s anyone we wanna learn from it’s these guys and we finally need some one on one attention for our company.  So yeah we kinda splurged but talk about taking it to the next level…yeah baby!  We’re also gonna to do some yummy dining and boutique shopping in some vintage modern districts.  Does anyone have any recommendations??? The ‘Little Italy’ district seems dope…we’re just looking for salvage yards or anything that has mid-century modern aesthetics.  Oh pretty please…leave your ideas in the comment box below.  Thank you!  Can’t wait to tell you all about our fabulous getaway…Stay Tuned!

Everyone…meet the Jones family!!!  We photographed their rambunctious family last Sunday and got to hit up two locations since the weather was sooooo perfect!  Lately it’s been in the low 80’s here in Tucson!  I know…I know some east coasters would be ‘oh so jealous’ but to us natives it only means that the 100 degree weather is quickly approaching. Yikes.  So Eric and I try to soak up as much ’spring time’ coverage as possible.  Which means we are the busiest between March-May (these are my favorite months out of the year).  I could lay in a hammock all day if I wasn’t such a ‘girl on the go’.  I like to have my plate full of fantastic creative projects…and sometimes that means I don’t get to necessarily relax for more than a few hours or even a few mintues.  Is there anyone else out there that can relate?…there’s gotta be!. I’m really bad at that and Eric has to constantly remind me to RELAX!!!.  So that’s exactly what we BOTH did after our session with the Jones family.  Phew…those kids tuckered us out.  I don’t know how Jessica & Shane handle two boys who are always wanting to play.  I totally give them props.  Parenting has gotta be the hardest job on the planet.

So as I was editing through their family session I came across this hilarious shot.  At first I kinda skimmed by it but something caught my eye.  I didn’t even realize while taking the photograph that little Aiden was pulling on dad’s face.  And I’m sure he does this A LOT!  Am I right dad?.  Too cool that we were able to capture that one moment when it took place. Gosh I LOVE being a PHOTOGRAPHER!!!  I do I do I do.  And I’m proud to SHOUT it from the roof tops!!!  Ok ok I’m getting carried away.

Thank you Jessica + Shane + Sam + Aiden for a lovely me2 family portrait session.  And good thinking with the french fry break…totally worked!  I hope this teaser holds ya (specifically Jessica) over a lil bit longer…Stay tuned!

Last weekend Eric & I had the pleasure (scratch that)…lovely challenge of photographing a whole group of crazy fun teenagers for Julissa’s sweet 16 pre-party bash!  We headed out to hit the streets of downtown Tucson for some urban yumminess.  And boy did we find it.  As Eric & I scouted out the location within the parking garage we were greeted by security as we had set off the surveillance sensors on the upper deck! ***SWEET*** Wouldn’t be a shoot without doing so now would it?.  I guess we have to have a permit to use the upper deck but not the lower two floors.  And thankfully this little spot of goodness was located just above ground level…so we soaked it up.  Although this image might seem quite simple to orchestrate…your dead wrong.  You try getting 16 teenagers to all pose straight on to the camera with no ‘diva’ or ‘GQ’ attidudes….it’s rough! And for them to NOT talk while doing so.  But we wooooorked it out and this was basically the only shot where all of them did their job. Woo hoo…that’s all it takes and we couldn’t be happier with the results.

WE WON…WE WON…WE WON!!!
A few weeks back our FAVORITE photography web designers ‘IntoTheDarkroom‘ tweeted about an exciting contest they were running while in Las Vegas @ WPPI to all their twitter followers.  Eric & I immediately jumped on board and tweeted back that we wanted in.  Duh…of course! Click…here to see the previous post about the goods.  On day one of the convention expo we were asked to stop by the SMILEBOOTH, pick up our t-shirts to wear around all day and get a quirky photo taken…this got us an automatic entry into the contest.  Woohoo! And everyone else who tweeted what was displayed on our shirts got entered for a chance to win some YUMMY prizes too. See our nutty snapshots below…obviously we weren’t entirely ready for shot #1!  Talk about ‘deer in the head lights’!  We were like ‘wha-what it’s already taken a picture?!. Ha.





All throughout our stay in Vegas we couldn’t help wonder who won? who won?…and what exactly did they win?. Arggg. It was killing us with anticipation. Fast-forward to a few days later and a little birdie tweeted this…





OMG! So you’re probably asking yourself right about now ‘Well what the heck did you guys WIN???‘. Drumroll……please…….wait for it…..it’s almost here…. We won a ‘custom photography brand portfolio‘ + ‘customized blog‘!!!. HOLY MOLY. We still can’t believe it. Seriously. We have never ever won anything. We didn’t even play the slots while in Vegas. I told Eric I wanted to gamble $20 while there but we even forgot to do that. Yeah I’m a highrolla’. Actually I would have gotten really sad if I had lost the $20 cause in my mind that’s at least two desserts. And you know I love me some desserts. Currently it’s carrot cake…mmmmmm. Ok ok I’m getting off the topic as I always do. So yes…what an AH-mazing opportunity we are going to have with the fabulous folks @ ITDR and we can’t thank them enough. I do think a custom website with them has gotta be in the works too. This would complete…us. We start our inspiring journey this July!!!

Wow…this post is way overdue! These last few weeks have been a whirl-wind from WPPI in Vegas, to portrait shoots and to designing new MOD studio books. Many more exciting blog posts to come…we promise. Oh and we did a mentor session!

At the beginning of the year we were contacted by the charming Maranda Peterson from Urban Chic Portraits about if we offered mentoring sessions….and we were like ‘hellzzz yeah!’. She resides + runs the business from Yuma, Arizona which is about 4 hours from us here in Tucson. As we got to know each other more through email she was quick to share that she co-owns the photography business with her best friend! Their friendship started in the 7th grade!!! How cool is that?. Maranda is the west gal and Channon is currently the east coast. They were both sooooo eager to learn from us and we were delighted to share how we do things around here in purple nickel land. Since they specialize in portraits as we do it was a match made in heaven.  These two asked some great questions and wanted to focus on re-branding development, how to strive in creating friendly and superb customer service within a company, designing a portrait session around their client’s needs as well as their own (so they can rock out their visions) and last but not least developing a really fun custom ordering and viewing process that WOW’s them everytime. We strive in making our mentoring sessions about what YOU (the photographer/biz owner) want to gain and how to work on your strengths.  We also do throw in a few ‘MUST KNOW’S’ that we feel have helped us to succeed…especially when you share co-ownership. It’s a perfect pairing. Eric & I are strong believers in following our life’s passion. Work is a huge part of anyone’s life…so you better LOVE what you do.

FYI…this is sort of a long photographic blog post. Way too many cool shots that we just couldn’t leave em’ out. Plus finally some ‘behind the scenes’ images too.

Thanks again Maranda + Channon for such a fantastic afternoon. We can’t wait to see your business blossom and shine***  We wish you the best in your journey as photographers!

And muchos gracias to my sister Julie for modeling again for like the one millionth trillionth time…she secretly likes it! Shhhhhh……

Channon + Maranda





























You know we had to get some of these!














The next few images are courtsey of Urban Chic Portraits & their perspective…