2020- the year that doesn't stop taking.

You know...as far as this whole stupid year goes, I've honestly had it pretty easy. I've been blessed that my husband's job could keep us steady and he was easily able to work from home. Even lucky that my little girl is as introverted as I am, so while she missed school- she wasn't completely devastated to just be home with Mom and Dad for months. But man...losing one of these prime years of holidays...that one has sucked. 

As parents we all know how limited our time is with our kids before they become teenagers and *tear* adults. I knew by August we probably wouldn't be having a typical Halloween...the idea of Trick or Treating just sounds...risky. I've seen all the cute social distanced contraptions showing up online and the people trying to find work arounds...but the fact is I just can't go to each house and know the precautions they're taking. One sneezed on candy wrapped it all it would take.

​So we'll be home. BUT.  I still want my baby to have a fun Halloween. So I've spent the last couple of weeks finding  (read: pinning)  ideas for Halloween fun....

Sugar cookies are a favorite around here- when I saw these ghost cookies I thought SWEET- I don't need to mess with a thousand food colorings! Haha...so I picked up some ghost cookie cutters from amazon and  I figure making cookies accounts for at least a couple hours of Halloween fun when all is said and done. 

We actually already made this- but it would also be a fun craft to put together day of! We got the twig wreath from Michaels and a handful of rubber snakes from Walmart. Ours is still sitting around waiting to be hung...I'm planning to add a few halloween battery powered lights to it...actually should probably just go hang it up since it's like less than a week from D day >.<

This cute little skele fairy was a must do for me- I found a little skeleton at Target and I always have these feather butterflies hanging around in my studio- you can find them at Michael's or Joanns! It was a quick craft, and now we have a skeleton fairy to ride our skeleton unicorn hahaha! Again this is an easy craft to delight the littles and keep their mind off stranger's candy.

These vampire donuts looked easy as hell and as we have a deep abiding love of donuts in this house, it's a must do. I haven't actually shopped for these yet, so I'm hoping there's still plenty of these plastic teeth floatin around in stores....

Since we're clearly aiming for a giant stomachache this Halloween (I mean- that's half the point right?) I figured how better to feed the kiddo non-sugar food than to just stuff her full of carbs and cheese lol! These pumpkin quesadillas are so fun; again- this one looks super easy to do, and I'm all about that!

And to wash it all down- some evil looking black lemonade! I actually ordered some 3d silicone skull ice cube trays to add into this...I may have spiked the ice cubes with tiny plastic spiders too. I don't actually think my kiddo will think that's as hilarious as I do ^_^

And of course- me being me we've done a bunch of Halloween shoots this month! If anyone is looking for last minute Halloween fun- I may have some space left on my calendar this week for a spooky mini session! 

Hope ya'll stay safe and filled with sugar this weekend <3

Hello blog- I have returned. If I've said it once I've said it a hundred times- I am terrible at blogging and many of the other day to day things that you're supposed to do when running a business. Someday I'll have someone else take care of the business-y details and I'll be free to just create all day every day...but that is not this day.

So 2020 huh? What a wild ride...and we're not even done yet! So to answer the question I keep getting- YES! I am open for business. I happily wear a mask to any shoot and am so beyond ready to get back to doing what I love! I spent my quarantine creating with my tiny human- so for now I'll leave you with one of the first images we created when quarantine hit and the change in the world could be felt so heavily. Not only was my daughter suddenly stripped of her amazing school (shout out to Parker Performing Arts!) , but she also lost her ballet classes which she LOVED. This image helped us both express how we felt about this 2020 dystopia.

Talk to ya'll soon! 
<3 K

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My mother's day was wonderful this year...my beautiful new custom dress for my client wardrobe from Reclamation came days before- so when asked what I wanted to do for my day I had an instant answer- photo shoot day!! Yeah I'm a weirdo...I love working on vacation and holidays ;P Anyways here's a handful of my favorites- taken on the side of the road in Lone Tree (my husband haaaates shooting in weird places haha- he was a trooper) This dress is just dreamy- I can't wait to use it with your kiddos! 

If I could bring the beach home to you all in Colorado I would- unfortunately the ocean is a bit big to fit in my suitcase >.<

What I did bring home with me were some really fun images of the cutest Maui mermaids! My first little mermaid was the sweetest little blondie who was SO excited to play dress up for the afternoon. One of my absolute favorite things about my job is seeing those little eyes light up when I pull out wardrobe and accessories for them to play with- when a child's imagination takes the lead my job becomes incredibly easy haha! 

While I can't bring the ocean home with me, I WILL be offering mermaid sessions on our home turf this summer so reach out soon to book a session before those summer calendars fill up! <3

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I remember the first time I saw a headline about a child being sent home because of their hair...the title caught me- I was big into self expression when I was school aged (and for that matter, still am haha!) so I clicked the link expecting to get myself riled up over some girl with a head of blue hair getting suspended. What I saw instead was the cutest little black girl- and nothing about her hair particularly struck me in the picture. She had her hair pulled back into a pony tail- which happened to be made of some short dreads. Apparently that style was considered "not presentable enough" for her to attend school. The explanation only further confused me. How on earth was this child's hair distracting when my neon pink tresses never seemed to affect my classmates grades?  It wasn't long before I saw this story repeated- and sooner still that I considered it commonplace. 

I've thought about what I wanted to say in this post for days. Should I talk about how black hair grows- how it's physically different from these stick straight strands and shouldn't be expected to behave the same? How about the fact that to MAKE black hair behave like white hair requires a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of chemicals that damage the hell out of the hair? Or how incredible black hair is (the variety of styles and textures are endless <3 ) and that it's absurd that anyone would find it anything but beautiful? Should I turn a mirror and ask how any person with european hair would feel if they were forced to cut their hair off or banned from wearing a ponytail? Maybe I should talk about the history of discrimination towards black hair going all the way back to slavery.  I could go with a more uplifting line- that New York officially banned hair discrimination as of this year, with California proposing similar legislation now (yay!)

All of that is true, and as strongly as I feel about this topic- I could probably make an entire post for each point. But for me, what it really comes down to is compassion and empathy. All it takes is to look into those kid's eyes in the videos of these school dismissals or the interviews that come after- sadness and confusion. These kids aren't trying to make a statement, their hair is just different than what our society has deemed "normal", which in this case is sadly just a synonym for "white." Humanity should be enough to tell us that when we see that look in a child's eyes, we should be evaluating our actions.

Black hair is beautiful- as an artist I express my thoughts and feelings much better visually, so I decided to bring a group of beautiful young black and mixed race girls together to celebrate their natural hair in imagery- it was an awesome experience and a wonderful (busy!) day full of laughs and flowers supplied by the unparalleled Valen of Blumenhaus.

I will have more images to share from this session in a future post, and my plan is to continue this project and dedicate one day a month to it- please get in touch if you would like for your child to participate! <3

So two weeks in Hawaii doesn't suck haha! Between a week in Maui and a week in Kauai my soul is feeling quite refreshed. Just wish I could bring the ocean home with me >.< I'm working hard on the portrait sessions I did while on vacation (yes I work on vacation...pretty much every time lol) but for now I'll share some of my favorite images from the trip- after our pretty amazing bomb cyclone yesterday I figured ya'll could use some warm thoughts ;)

The Maui Ocean Center was really cool- and since we got POURED on all day we figured the aquarium was a good place to chill for a few hours. I ended up getting a LOT of great photos to use later in compositing (mermaids here I come haha!)

On Maui we were staying at the very beginning of the Hana Highway- so this incredible bamboo forest and the amazing rainbow eucalyptus trees were only minutes from our rental home!

So getting up at 3AM to make it to sunrise on Haleakala was rough- but ultimately worth it. Oh and check it out- that's some leftover snow from the week before when they had shut down the mountain to visitors!

I basically spent 2 full weeks insisting I be on a beach at sunset...and these are why haha <3

Kauai especially had so much beautiful plant and wildlife...and there are chickens EVERYWHERE on that island- much to my daughter's and my delight haha!

After the ocean the thing I'll miss the most is the incredible skies full of stars...when you're away from light pollution it's not hard to see why our ancestors were obsessed with the heavens.

And finally our tiny little buddy...he was about the size of the tip of a finger haha!

So these images are actually a couple years old (and you would not believe how big these girls have gotten!) and from one of my first ever studio shoots. These were done with poor quality lights and somehow I managed to use my backdrop on what were still carpeted floors back then o_O....my studio has grown a lot, but I have to say, I'm still pretty proud of these images...plus I mean- these princesses are beyond adorable <3 We had a lot of fun with wardrobe changes and just playing and twirling!
Oh- and Happy Valentines day everyone <3

It's that time of year again! This is the 3rd year I've participated in the Shoot & Share competition- billed as "the only free and fair photo competition" and I'd say that's probably accurate- usually in photo competitions you can send a link to your photos to your friends, family, and followers- which basically turns it into a popularity contest instead of a photo contest. In Shoot & Share you're shown 4 images at a time from a category, you select your favorite and then get a new 4 images to select from...honestly it's pretty damn addictive haha! I love that Shoot & Share is free to enter- when I invest back into my business I prefer that money goes towards improving my client experience! Here are my entries for the year- keep an eye out and happy voting!

Last week my own little princess got her first pair of glasses 0_0 She's completely thrilled and picked glasses that "match mommy's" (be still my heart- must remember these moments when she's 13 and I'm the worst mom in the world haha!) We knew about a year ago that she *might* have some vision issues, but it became pretty clear by fall that we had an early adopter on our hands.

Being a children's photographer in Parker is super convenient haha! I love living here because we're right on the cusp of country and city...which means lots of beautiful locations to shoot. One of my tried and true locations is 17 Mile Farmhouse Park. Most people are familiar with this park's super cute white house, big red barn and classic wind mill...but I really love how versatile the whole space is and rarely find myself near the structures. There's a path that leads back to a beautiful woodsy area, a small stream if you're willing to do a bit of path finding, and oh man the light that hits this place right before sunset is just unbeatable. I also love that every kiddo I photograph at this park finds their own magic in exploring it. Plus it's less than 10 minutes from my house- can't beat that commute!

And if you're out on the right day you might get to meet the neighbors... ;)