I LOVE my studio space! It's my office / indoor shooting space / meeting area / proofing area / gallery / home away from home. It's in an old Victorian house on Main Street here in Buena Vista, and when clients come in for the first time, I always get a ton of compliments and questions. So, I figured for those of you who are far away, or who haven't made it into the studio yet, here's a little photographic tour of my awesome space.The building was built in 1909 and I share the space with my landlord Christina Brandenburg, who is a stellar architect and all-around wonderful person (I'd link to her website right now, but I don't think she has one). It's old and has all kinds of crazy nooks and crannies and ancient fixtures and huge windowpanes with ripply glass. In past lives, it's been a medical clinic, a South African woodcarver shop, a realtor's office, and a home to some of my clients' grandparents. Nope, I didn't choose the paint colors. Nope, I don't live there (at least not technically :) - in the summer I'm there so much that I might as well live there). It has gorgeous real wood floors, a warm sunny kitchen, natural light in almost 4 directions, bay windows, a front patio with hanging flowers, huge sweeping cottonwood trees, grass that grows at the edge of the sidewalk, and it would have a nice little garden if the deer would stop eating everything in sight. Oh yes, the deer. There's also pretty much an entire herd of deer that live in the yard.

One time last summer, I was working late. It was twilight - you know that eerie, surreal light that creeps in just past sunset? I was alone in the studio, but suddenly, all the little hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I could have sworn that someone was watching me. I tried to shake off this creepy feeling, but it just wasn't going away. Finally, with near-horror, I suddenly remembered that when I sit at my desk, my back is to a window. Wide-eyed, I turned and looked over my shoulder. There was a huge, mangy deer standing so close that its breath was fogging up the windowpanes. It was eating my newly-planted flowers from the flower box, just staring at me, breathing heavily. I shuddered. I hate deer. My hatred of deer could take up an entire post.

Aaannnyyway...

This first image was taken last summer, after things started growing but before I planted tons of brightly-colored flowers in the front and did some landscaping. Doesn't all that green look refreshing, though, even as unkempt as it is in this shot? Getting anything to grow at 8,000 feet is pretty exciting :)