unlearning...

These last few weeks have been historically transformative for the world. The Black Lives Matter movement and protests against police brutality have taken a priority for us. And while muting our work and life to amplify the Black community's voices is vital right now, we are also doing the non-performative work behind the scenes to be better white allies.

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Stephanie in the Woods

We've been in the mood for while to do something different in our work. Both of us have been trying to make a conscious effort to see different angles, look for different light that we wouldn't typically be drawn to and to shoot a more soulful story. Finally we planned a shoot with Stephanie, who is a Ballerina, in the woods of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. 

We're both SO proud and in love with these images. The story they tell and the experience of documenting something at a much slower pace than a wedding is something we're really drawn to right now. We told Stephanie to be herself, dress however she wanted, do her makeup however she wanted; that we wanted to document a soulful image of a soulful person. We wanted the light and the dark to meet, kiss and be the main event in these images. Take a look at Stephanie in the Woods. We didn't plan on photographing Stephanie with her car but once we saw her in it, we couldn't resist!

Collected 2015

Way back in July we hosted the second annual Collected. This event, spun out of a handful of ideas and dreams of collaborating, has taken on a life of it's own both years. This year we had the most amazing team of vendors in the industry to put their minds to work creating vignettes of style and creativity. The photographers, all twelve of us, looked with discerning eyes for ways to improve, to see differently, to refuel our passion for this creative passion. The product was a weekend full of crazy downpours, delicious food, bottles of whiskey passed around the fire, eating s'mores out of each others hands (that was awkward and I'm still not sure why it happened), new bonds, laughter and a lot of really great photography. 
Here's my take on this years look!

The love and appreciation I have for Tap Root Catering, Fair Rarity Flowers, Baci Designer (stationary) & Borrow Rentals for being huge contributors to this event TWO YEARS in a row is just too much to put into words on this blog! Your work is constantly stunning, inspiring, creative and literally THE BEST in the industry! 


Vendors who make this event possible: 
Taproot Catering
Sweet Water Caravan
Borrow Vintage & Eclectic Rentals
Fair Rarity Flowers
Baci Designer
Oak & Honey Events
Andi Wheatley Makeup Artistry

Sponsors:
Special thanks to all of our amazing national & local event sponsors
The FIND Lab
ProDPI
H.H.Boogie
(provided a hand-crafted album box for a giveaway, see the video here.)
Madera Books
Deli Ohio
17hats
Artifact Uprising
Chad Austin Design

Hugs and high-fives to the gorgeous folks in front of the camera:
Devin Casper-Hill  & Keith Hill
Audreanna Tabellion & Josh Heckathorn
Tj Alleshouse
Jeanna Washko & Family
Maria Mejia

Of all the places that I've been...

I'm no place with out you....
That's the song lyric. That's the thought I've been finding myself thinking as each day and each adventure comes to it's end. Today, I'm 30. This summer marks our 10th anniversary together. We're feeling a bit excited about this new chapter. Getting older is never easy because it's just one less day...one less year that we get to spend doing life this way... but I'm so thankful for my 30 years and especially that the last 10 of them have been spent with Justin at my side every. single. step of the way. This next chapter is going to be quite a story. It took us 10 years to figure things out but this chapter is going to be the best one yet. This chapter looks a lot like this: Us, together, loving life, living with intention, traveling when and where we want, staying an extra night just because, drinking bloody mary's at every opportunity and cuddling, always cuddling. My birthday advice today is to find your people and love them hard, do what you want and find what makes you crazy passionate, forget the norm, the standard, the socially acceptable...do you and do it with someone who loves you and makes you feel like the best human you can be! 
This chapter looks like a lot like this....

(HUGE hugs and thank you's to our new friends Nate & Amanda Howard for capturing this adventure for us in Malibu last month, we had the raddest time, learned so much, saw the dopest sunset over the coast and made new adventure friends...thanks guys!) 

Seneca Rocks, West Virginia

We just wanted to get away. We watched the weather for weeks leading up to "spring" break. Low 40's and high 30's. A few hours south the forecast was a bit warmer so we looked for the nearest mountain, we loaded up the car, we packed a cooler and we got away. 
The tee-pee was too cold to sleep on the ground and we didn't bring sleeping pads, so we slept in the Jeep. Waking up to fog bellowing out of the mountain canyon and the smell of pressed coffee has got to be one of the best feelings in the world. We met a dog at the Harper's general store who ended up following us all the way to the top of Seneca Rocks. We made friends with a cardinal that kept tapping it's wings on the windows as we slept. We discovered that some of my ancestors might have been early settlers of the area. We sat on the edge and climbed farther than you're supposed to. We drove into  two feet of snow at the top of Spruce Knob and had to make a scary turn-around. We ate pie at a diner where we were the only customers.  That's what adventures are all about...the unexpectedness of it all. 

 

In the direction of the mountains

 

I have to start this first entry by saying that not all posts in this new journal space will be this long. This is a special announcement about some changes that are very important to us and in that there is some back story to be told. 

I have a hard time articulating what it is I love so much about the wild. Most people probably think I just like taking pretty pictures and posting them to Instagram. Although, that's true there exists a more inherent love of wilderness areas. It's the place I feel indescribably myself. Growing up we'd spend days wandering through the woods. The eighteen acres of farm and forest behind our house was all the space that we needed to feel away from everything. Long summer days were spent wandering in the woods. The fern covered hill and fallen logs over the creek became a second home. There weren't trails or tree-houses to hang out in, just trees and the space below them to create whatever kind of adventure we wanted. 

It wasn't until our road trip across the country last year that I realized we'd slowly been making a transition back to that notion. Since our first time in the mountains, our heart strings have been pulled gently and ever so slightly in that direction. We took the long way here. And I'm grateful and humbled by that. I remember being graced with these ideas, so long ago; On a plane home from WPPI or while ordering at a restaurant in Denver my first time there. Ideas that took years to come to fruition. Ideas that I thought of and wrote down and then never thought of again until I started putting this together. Those ideas were who we we wanted to be, they are who we've become.

It's more than a re-brand. We've done that too many times before. It's more than graphics and tag lines, those can be changed with a click. Those are just how we look now. And it's hard to be entirely original in that respect. To us, this is a risk we're taking. It's an entirely new direction. It's how we feel that really matters. All this; Imagined on long roads between forests of tall trees. Fostered in the many mountain ranges of the western United States, during sunsets and sunrises. Over the last four years.  And built to the sounds of Bon Iver and Ben Howard over red wine and the occasional cigarette. 

We introduce to you (sans drum roll) Mallory & Justin, Adventure Wedding Photographers. 

What's that mean, though? Well, it means we're actively pursuing couples who choose to have free-spirited, outdoor weddings in unique and nontraditional venues. We're hoping that means National Parks, mountain tops, canyons and cliff-sides but we're OK with it if not. We want to meet couples as strangers, to venture down unknown trails and climb steep hills with them...then share a meal and a beer at the top as friends. We want our work to be ingrained in the authenticity of the experience and laced with a spirit for adventure. 

We chose to have elements of our rebrand designed for us by local folks who could add a bit of their vision to our story. Bespoke. Because the sentiment really matters this time. We wanted a collaborative vision, eraser marks, a hand-to-paper process... we wanted something deeper than what we had before because it feels deeper to us.  We wanted something that said 'handcrafted goods' were being sold here with intricacies and wear, like they'd been around forever. Artistry. We wanted something a little  vintage and rustic with a wild & naturalist vibe. We looked at shipping crate art and old lithograph prints as well as the wilderness for texture and design inspiration. My tattoo inspired our logo. M & J in the mountains. Yes. 

We'd like to thank:
Chad Austin Design for his work on our logo.
Letterpress Jess for her magic with our collateral.
Blair, Eric, Erin and Mark for taking me on adventures in Colorado. 
To Squarespace for this template and for many things, mostly being awesome, simple, user-friendly and cheap.
And the mountains for being bigger than we are and inspiring us so much.