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…

We’ve teamed up with the amazing-ly brillant Alison King, founder of Modern Phoenix Neighborhood Network!!! They are the internet’s only comprehensive clearing house of information and preservation advocacy for Modernism across Arizona. Their network features articles, photographs, a forum, a yearly home tour which is fabulous…we haven’t missed a year and finally an endless source of professionals who explore all things modern within their craft. We can’t get enough of this network and now have a link on the site so that their modern creative users can find us…the modern hip photographers. It’s a win win. Click on the image to see for yourself. The 6th annual midcentury home tour in Paradise Gardens is coming up in April too and you don’t wanna miss it. We’ll be there so make sure to say Hi.  Architecture + design + photography is totally our thing if you haven’t noticed by now and we find HUGE inspiration by going on the tours.  Not only for our own home but within our photography biz as well.  We have known the King’s for about 2 years now and even had the opportunity to photograph them in their element. It was sooooo FUN! Don’t remember their session?…check it out…HERE.

If you’ve found us through our new link on MOD PHX feel free to leave a comment below and say ‘hello’…we really enjoy chatting with new ’soon to be’ friends!

We LOVE LOVE LOVE ‘IntoTheDarkroom‘!!! Seriously! We use their slideshow program + proofing system and couldn’t be HAPPIER with the outcome. We can customize it all to fit our style + brand. For those photographers out there that have not checked out ITDR you must click on the image and go NOW to check out all their goodness. It’s LOADED. Eric & I can’t wait for the day when we can do a full on custom web project with these lovely folks. And their customer service is FABULOUSO…which is a huge huge huge thing to us. They’re also located in Phoenix! How cool is that?. Literally two hours away from us in Tucson. We met part of the team Anthony and Ann Marie @ their Imaging USA booth last year…they were sooooo sweet, friendly and totally know their stuff for web-land. But duh…that’s what they do! Can’t wait to see them again @ WPPI in March. It’s gonna ROCK. Eric & I have never been but are so EXCITED. We’ve already got our party roadmap trickd’ out for Vegas. I’ll post more on this later.

I believe it was on Eric’s Birthday that I took these a few weeks ago before he arrived home that evening. As I sat at my computer I glanced out the window of our production office and saw that the leaves across the street from our home were FINALLY changing colors. Gezzzzzz…I think it’s safe to say that our fall season doesn’t really seem to last all that long. You blink and it’s gone.  Tucson goes from blazing hot temperatures of the dry summer heat to 85 degree fall weather and then BAM…it just hits…a cold front and the leaves start changing and falling off the branches all in the same week! I look out the window now and only 2 weeks ago the trees were full. Crazy. So I grabbed my iPhone and used what battery juice was left and snapped away. Well more like clicked the camera icon. All photographs were taken using a mixture of ‘Polarize‘ and ‘Vint Shift‘ iPhone apps. I had a mere 10 minutes to capture the leaves before the sun faded away.  Enjoy…