The weather was great yesterday afternoon so we stepped away from our computers and threw some food together for a little picnic. Then we went for a country drive and on the way home we passed a fun little spot that caught our eyes. We backed up, pulled over, and danced around in a culvert for a little while.

I’m curious — do all photographers trespass? I think it’s in our blood. When a location is good, I like to think it’s worth it.

We took over a thousand photos because we have been playing around with stop motion (awesomeness!), but here are some of my personal favorites of Kelly. What can I say? I married up.

And whoever says that cameras don’t take pictures – people do; well, they’re wrong. My camera took this one, all by itself!

All photos taken with the new VSCOcam app on the iPhone. Juuuuust kidding! :)

Every once in a while we have presidential candidates who want to be a part of our engagement sessions and normally, it doesn’t work out for them to be a part of any of our photos.  But, when we met up with Laura and Seth, we managed to fit a little, tiny bit of Ron Paul and his fan club into the background.  (Ok, so maybe it was totally an accident and not visible at all, but there really was a Ron Paul rally going on to the left of the last picture on the lake.) :)

So… on to a real story! I’ve known Laura for years. We grew up about 3 miles from each other, went to high school together, were prom king and queen(!), worked at the same restaurant, and both enjoyed the fresh air of the Wisconsin farmland (and I’m not really talking about the good smelling fresh air).

After not seeing Laura for about five years, we received an exciting email from her telling us about this amazing guy named Seth, who she is now engaged to, and asking us to take some photos of her and her favorite guy.  We were soo happy to meet Seth, walk around Madison with them, and grab some dinner together. They’re wonderful people who love Madison, the Badgers, kids, and each other.

We have an unwritten rule in our family that goes something like this: if friends of ours who we don’t see often come within a 100-mile or so radius of where we live, we will drive to see them. Or, if we’re driving and have to go a few hours (or sometimes 4 or 5) out of our way to visit friends, we’ll do it. We’ve done it so often that it’s sort of become the norm for our family. Sometimes it’s hard or inconvenient or not totally ideal for our kids, but let’s be real — if we say we love our friends, but don’t make an effort to be with them when possible, well, do we really love them?

So, when my beautiful, giggly, sweet-hearted friend Maureen texted me to ask us how far we live away from Madison (because she and her boyfriend, Mike, would be there for a few hours), we tossed our Monday plans out the window and threw together a plan that involved driving to Madison with two wiggly kids in the backseat. It was so great to give my sweet, sweet friend a hug again and to meet her wonderful boyfriend. It was so worth it.

It’s always worth it. :)

Also, we brought our camera along and asked them if we could take their picture. They let us. Wasn’t that nice of them? Here are a few images from our quick little photo shoot that took place on the one cold and rainy day of this unusually warm spring. :)

is it hot outside, or is it just me? :) here’s to another weekend of exploring.

It’s snowing today.

It does this a lot, here in Wisconsin. But we’re not really winter people. In situations like this we’ve found that we can do two things: complain or search for something to be thankful for. This probably sounds like the whole “glass half full or empty” sort of thing but, to be honest I think we’re all naturally glass half empty kind of people. Because it takes work to see things from a positive perspective, doesn’t it? So today we are thankful for little hands that are willing to shovel the driveway for us, warm drinks, and delicious leftovers from a party we had last night. Yes, I have a headache that hasn’t left me for days (weeks?), it’s cold and slushy, and we have to shovel our car off if we want to go anywhere, but let’s not focus on that okay? :)

A month ago, we went to the world’s greatest photography workshop and while we were there, we were reminded of how much we waste time comparing. We were all challenged to do a “blog fast” for an entire month.

It hasn’t quite been an entire month for us, yet, but we’re already amazed at how many things we’ve created in the past few weeks. Because our eyes and minds aren’t being fulfilled with the beauty that other people have created, we’ve found ourselves really itching to create and find beauty on our own. In just a few short weeks, between the two of us, we’ve created four pillow covers, a tree branch light fixture, a crazy window covering made of fabric scraps, multiple pieces of artwork for our walls, beautiful food, a new logo for our website, and more.

We believe that we have it planted in us — a desire to create and see beauty. Yet, by looking at things like Pinterest and other wonderful blogs, we get a little depressed about the truly great, creative things we have already done AND it quenches our desire to actually DO anything new. That makes us really sad, because there is soo much more satisfaction in creating our own art that isn’t inspired by/a copy of someone else’s. (We’ve also found that it’s hard to try something new because we tend to be our own worst critic and many times that robs us, too.)

So if you’re struggling with comparison we’ve found a few things that have helped us…

Stop looking at blogs. We won’t be offended if you ignore us, too; we’re actually telling you to do it. :)

It’s not always easy to appreciate what is right there in front of us. It becomes such an ordinary part of days that we don’t even think what we have is worth being thankful for. And if we’re truthful with ourselves, it’s because we’ve been comparing our lives to what someone else has/does. We’ve moved a few times in the last five years and have found that beautiful, happy moments happen just the same in big houses, tiny apartments, and rented places with stale, white walls. We just have had to search a little harder at times.

Over the past year or so, we’ve started to hang artwork, verses and phrases around our house to help us look at our everyday life with amazement, wonder and joy. And you know what has happened? We’ve become thankful. People who are thankful. We’re not perfect and many days we fail miserably but, in general, we’ve realized that we have more than we need and there is always something to find joy in.

We’ll leave you with this: “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Click on that quote – it’s a link to a great little poster that we think everyone should have on their wall. If not this exact one, then at least the quote, in some form.

Happy Friday, friends! We hope you have a joy-filled weekend. :)

Ok, all kidding aside. Kelly is an awesome photographer and a crucial part of what we do. And we absolutely love the fact that we can photograph couples, as a couple, and we think they should too. :)

And no, the logo above will not be our new one (though nothing says ridiculously awesome wedding photographers like a lightening bolt in the middle of our names), but you can keep your eyes out for the new official logo… which will be coming verrry soon (you know, just in case you want stickers, posters, or t-shirts of our names).

We’re staying in our pajamas a little bit longer, we’re reading a lot, we’re going outside more. We’re in off-season mode, for the most part, but that doesn’t mean we’re not working on other projects and it especially doesn’t mean that we’re not using our cameras. In fact, we’ve been finding that we pick them up a ton more than usual and instead, we’re spending less time in front of a computer screen. We’re looking for beauty, we’re on a treasure hunt, were re-inspired.

Many days, our kids are our subjects. They’re great ones to practice on — they rarely sit still and they’re pros at ignoring the fact that a camera is present. A lot of the time, our iPhones are the cameras we have the quickest access to so we pull those out, which is great. And we used to use our back-up cameras to shoot our everyday, which worked fine, as well. But lately, we’ve been finding joy in using our best cameras and lenses to search for beauty and to create images.

It’s like we’re taking out our china for our everyday meals. And it’s wonderful.

Here are some recent images – from our unposed, raw, everyday.

We’ve been shooting weddings since 2006 and had yet to go to a conference or workshop before… quite honestly, we’ve been waiting and waiting for someone to step it up a notch and get a bit deeper than just how to use your camera or maybe even how to market yourself or become famous. Here’s the truth – there have been points in the last few years where those things were the highest priority for us, but there has been a lot of learning that has taken place over the years, so we have been left wanting more.

Jeremy and Ash are giants in our lives – people we have looked up to (from a “we only know about them online” distance) for awhile. But they willingly opened their home to us, total strangers, jumped down off the pedestal we had placed them on and related to us and accepted us as friends. I mean, when the icebreaker of choice is Dance Central 2, how can you not immediately love everyone in the room? And we did… we’re soo, so thankful for the new friendships we formed with the other incredible couples who shared this experience with us. (We miss all of you!)

Jer and Ash have an unbelievable ability to open their lives up to people and share the deepest parts of their hearts through their words. We were captivated by their love for each other and their energy and excitement for what they do. Do you want to know the secret to how they’re so amazing at what they do? It maybe has nothing to do with their camera settings… it’s because they know how to love people reallllly, really well.

Just know that it’s a massive understatement when I say this, know that I’m not at all exaggerating — these guys blew our expectations out of the water. Anything you may know of them online is even better in person. I don’t think one person who attended made it through the three days at the Parsons without shedding a tear (ok, lots of tears.) We’re changed people.

We’re still digesting the hundreds of thoughts written down in our notebooks and are still asking ourselves hard questions that will help us make changes to better reflect why we do what we do… so, at this point, it’s kind of hard to write out more of what we learned. But we will leave you with a few quotes that have helped us to process “why“ as well as a few images from our time at the Parsons that make us smile.

“Have you lost your sense of wonder?”
“We sometimes take ourselves too seriously and the people we shoot not seriously enough.”
“Happy photos are different than meaningful photos.”
“WHY… ? Ask yourself that question about everything.”
“Find joy where you are.”

p.s. I don’t know how we didn’t just steal baby Zion to bring him home with us – cutest kid ever. For real…

p.s.s If you want to experience even more of what it felt like to be at the bread winners workshop, go look at these beautiful documentations on Kevin + Heidi’s blog and Steve + Bernadette’s blog.

Kelly only fell in one snow bank, none of us fell through the thin ice, and our hands didn’t freeze too quickly. Success! :)

Over the past few days, we’ve focused on updating our portfolio (so go check out all the new/updated portfolio galleries!), but here is a very small selection of our absolute favorite images from 2011 – our top 10, we think. :) Every one of these images evokes some sort of emotion in both of us, even after looking at them close to hundreds of times.

Dear Rob, Kelsey, Ryan, Jess, Lindsey, Art, Adam, Annie, Robbie, Sarah, Greg, Jackie, Jason, Lane, Nate, Katie, DJ, Melissa, Billy, Kelly, Dan, Colleen, Pasquale, Chessie, Brian, Kristy, William, Leah, Matt, Mindy, Dan, Michelle, Nick, Gayle, Rich, Patty, Ryan, Miranda:

We’re so deeply grateful that you chose us to be a part of your wedding. We only have images like this because each of you invited us in and trusted us to do what we love.

Thank you. So much.