kaela (colorado springs senior pictures)

Kaela and I shot her senior portraits at the Rock Ledge Ranch near Garden of the Gods, and, true story, this also happens to be where I went to preschool!  Now it's a living history museum, but back then it was called White House Ranch.  I haven't been back in ages, and it was crazy to see all these things that I just barely remembered.Kaela is such a sweetie and loves French (me too!).  At one point, we turned the corner and literally almost walked right smack into this cow.  It was awesome.  I love this cute session!

Beautiful!

brittany (colorado springs senior portraits)

I loved working with Brittany!  All of these were taken around her home in Colorado Springs.

 

I would definitely steal this jacket:

bailey (colorado springs senior portraits)

Bailey is SO GREAT!  I've been meeting all these cool music girls lately, and it just makes me miss music even more.  We bonded over stories of choirs, shows, and a cappella groups... and then we found this sweet patch of lavender.  Which I don't think is actually lavender, but I don't know what else to call it, so there you go.

alien road trip (new mexico lifestyle photographer)

We had this trip planned for months.  I don't even remember how we got started talking about it, but as soon as my friend Brynn and I decided to drive down to the annual UFO conference in Roswell, NM, we got hooked on exchanging UFO jokes and sending each other strange YouTube hoax videos... neither of us feels strongly about aliens one way or the other, but after looking at photos from previous conferences, the potential of lots of people in costume got us really excited. We kind of have a thing for costumes.Oh yeah... did I mention that this happened to land on the exact same weekend we ended up having to move?  And that somehow, despite having grown up in New Mexico, I got Roswell confused with Los Alamos and thought it was only a four hour drive?  Yeah.  Zach insisted that we still go, so we got everything all packed beforehand and Brynn and I made the TEN HOUR drive to Roswell to go participate in such activities as "alien wine tasting and BBQ!!!"

Roswell...it's (really really) hot, completely centered around UFO culture, and an hour away from Mexico.  Even serious businesses, like banks and doctor's offices, had UFOs or motherships or cute aliens in their logos.  They closed down Main Street for the festival, and we walked around in the heat checking out local alien-related businesses and getting stared at because, as it turns out, we were some of the only people in costume.  Yep.

On the border of CO and NM:

The "be in touch" mural  became one of our favorites.  We made the security guards take our picture, which is why it's horribly out of focus.

I'm pretty sure this was the outside of the County Republican building:

One of the few other costumed people:

I got so attached to this blue wig.  Every time I put on costume hair, I get disappointed that it's not my real hair.  Also, please notice the news crew in the reflection.

We decided this was a great time to go antique shopping.  Obviously.

Inside the UFO museum:

The alien costume contest!  We definitely watched this woman dressed as Blue Cleopatra eat a handful of live crickets onstage.  I'm not sure what this has to do with aliens, but it was entertaining.  I really wanted to find these people after the show and take some photos, but most of them changed out of costume right away :(

Alien wine tasting.

A bunch of storm trooper types just hanging out, waiting for a table at Chili's.  Totally normal.

mckinley (castle rock senior portraits)

McKinley is another of my amazing Senior Models, and for her mini-session, we met up with her horse!  She's such a sweetheart with the most amazing blue eyes.  How much do you love these boots, too?