. st. croix .

It has been so brutally unforgivingly cold lately here in Colorado, and I'm definitely starting to feel the winter blues and cabin fever set in.  Good thing I have some awesome photos of an awesome trip to look back on!  Almost as good as being there... almost :)  I'll say it again - I LOVED shooting in St. Croix!  Fun, colorful architecture, amazing sunny light, and, of course, my incredible clients :)  Here are a few personal photos from the trip to help transport you to a warmer place for a moment (at least mentally).

(Actually, I cheated... this was over Puerto Rico or one of the other islands on the way in to St. Croix.  But I still love this shot)

We were traveling at such a weird time.  Everything seemed deserted.  I don't know if I've ever seen the subways at DIA that empty!  My favorite part of the long day of travel was getting to ride the cool 10-seater little plane from St. Thomas over to St. Croix.  The plane was so small that they stashed our luggage in the wings, and weighed our carry-ons to make sure they were evenly distributed throughout the plane.  The shot above is taken from the back seat :)

The next shot is the view from our friends Haven and Matt's house.  Jealous!  When they moved in, they also found a whole cabinet full of cool retro liquor, which I was naturally fascinated by.

I guess it was "worm season"... the frangipani worms eat all the leaves and branches off of a certain tree, at the same time every year.  The trees are essentially stripped bare.  It was crazy how fast that happened - the worms would descend upon a tree by the hundreds.  If you put your ear up close, you can hear them crunching away.  The locals apparently hate them, but I thought they looked cool :)

Once again, a HUGE thank you to Haven and Matt for letting us stay with them!  I'm dying to go back right about now...

. the halk family .

Haven and Matt are dear family friends, and the reason we were in St. Croix in the first place!  Forget "family friends" - they count as family.  Their daughter Evie is one of the cutest, sweetest, most hilarious, most gorgeous children I've ever met.  I should also insert, proudly, that Evie loves my website.  Every night, she'd crawl into my lap, look at my laptop, and announce, "I want to see pictures of grumpy babies.  I want to see pictures of girls in white dresses."  Then she'd point out her favorites.  I'm smitten :)We had such a great time doing their family shoot at the beach where Columbus supposedly landed.  Once again, amazing light, amazing water, amazing smiles.  When they got splashed by an unexpected wave, this shoot sort of turned into a "trash the family" extreme portrait session.  Yay!  Extreme portraiture.. hmm.  Maybe I'll start a trend.  They ended up dancing, falling, playing, swimming, and I think Evie was doing some sort of two-year-old instinctual naked yoga (the last one is one of many favorites from this shoot).   What cool wonderful people :)  Haven, Matt, & Evie - thank you so much for everything -all the rum, all the improvisational cooking experiments, all the late-night talks, and for letting me go a little nuts with your bug zapper that one night :)

. i love my job .

Going through customs on the way back home (yep, the one that made us miss the flight), the customs agent was apathetically flipping through my passport.  I've been through customs a hundred times, but this time, the agent decided to ask me what I did for a living."I'm a photographer,"  I said, sounding almost surprised, even to myself. Since I rarely introduce myself that way, it really hit me then : how incredibly cool that this is what I get to do for a living!

Then, the agent looking at my camera bag, "What's in here, please?"

"Camera equipment."

"It's ALL camera equipment?"

"Yeah," I answered.

"Is... this all you brought?" asked the dubious customs agent.

"Oh, no, um..I have clothes, too."

He pauses, and, looking me up and down, eventually says, "Hmm."  And, lets me through.  Ten minutes too late :)

. welcome to st. croix .

I plan on doing a much longer blog post when we get back, but for now, I'm just enjoying it.  Great family shoot yesterday, amazing trash the dress shoot on the beach tomorrow, and plenty more to come.  Holy crap do I love this light.

. st. croix .

Wow... time is slipping away from me like crazy.  It's already November, which means my St. Croix trip is coming up!  For those who don't know, Zach and I are heading down to St. Croix, Virgin Islands for a much-needed break.  We'll be hanging out and reconnecting with some old friends, and I have some FUN shoots lined up while we're there, including a Trash the Dress session with horses!  I'm all kinds of excited!If you live in St. Croix or feel like hopping on a plane to the Virgin Islands for an epic photo shoot (kids! families!  weddings! trash the dress! modeling portfolios!)  please please let me know!  I'll be available in St. Croix from November 15-20th and I do still have some openings left.  This also means, for my Colorado clients, that I'll be out of the studio and unavailable from November 14th-22nd, so if you have any time-sensitive needs, please let me know as soon as possible before I leave.