Tag Archive for: love

West Yellowstone Couples Portraits of Belle and Angel

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  • West-Yellowstone-Couples-Engagement-Portraits

For Belle and Angel’s West Yellowstone Couples Portraits experience, we decided to drive back to their hometown of West Yellowstone, Montana to explore and photograph the place that fostered the roots of their relationship.

These two have been dating since high school – over seven years ago – where they first cultivated their relationship through their shared love of basketball.

While a lot has changed since high school, their relationship has never been stronger.

In Belle’s opinion regardless of where they are, Angel’s presence in her life is an immediate sense of home.

They now live and work in Bozeman, Montana – him as a chef and her as a caregiver.

Time together has helped them discover not only their love for each other but their shared passion for exploring the outdoors.

Now, as they work to finalize their wedding plans for Summer 2020, they wanted to celebrate this time in their lives by giving a nod to their shared love of camping and hiking in their old Yellowstone National Park area stomping ground.

We headed over to Black Sand Spring, a small spring creek west of town where we explored the area making photographs of them. Here are some favorites from their experience. Congrats on your engagement Belle and Angel! -M

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Anchorage Alaska Family Kids Portrait Photography – First Birthday

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  • Anchorage Alaska Family Kids Portrait Photography

I recently photographed the Anchorage Alaska Kids Portrait Photography of Eric and Brandy’s family celebration.

With all the couples and family portraits I’ve been making this Spring, I got a break. I took the opportunity to spend a week with my family up in Anchorage, Alaska.

Their official Anchorage Alaska Family Kids Portrait Photographer was back for more.

It is so much fun being an uncle!

We were celebrating the one-year-old birthday of my nephew Paul. I wanted to see the look on his face as he bit into his first chocolate birthday cake.

Not having any kids of my own, it’s been such a fun experience for me to watch my younger brother Eric as a father and as a caring partner to his wife Brandy. Household laughter sums up the experience every time I visit. Eric and Brandy are so good at playing and engaging with their children. It doesn’t take much for them to get their kids to giggle.

There is a lot of love in this Alaska home.

I feel grateful that the flexibility of my work schedule allows me to travel up to see them a couple of times a year and be a part of these kids’ lives.

As a photographer uncle, I want my niece and nephews to be able to look back at their candid childhood selves in pictures years from now and see all the love that was and is all around them.

Photographing my family has become a fun, personal project for me. I get to observe how these little lovable humans process their world and continue developing their different and unique personalities.

It means something to be there on that lazy morning to capture the pure joy in the face of Molly, my niece, as she cruises down the hallway on her scooter with “Jones”, the family Labrador chasing in stride.

Laughing and watching smiling Paul, who is just months away from taking his first steps, currently opting to carry all sorts of items in his mouth and utilizing his new crawling habit.

The kid can move.

For me, the best gifts from these experiences are being present for the little things.

Watching them helps me receive the world in a whole new way. A glimpse into the perspective of all things a new.

Here are some favorite moments from my time making Anchorage Alaska Family Kids Portrait Photography of my Alaska tribe. I can’t wait to return. -M

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Hyalite stargazing engagement portraits of Aysha and Brad

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  • engaged-couple-embrace-around-campfire-during-Hyalite-stargazing-engagement-portraits

I photographed the Hyalite stargazing engagement portraits of Aysha and Brad on the eve before the springtime road closure to Hyalite Canyon.

For Aysha, her love of Brad’s spontaneity and ability to make her laugh won her affection over quickly. Their relationship grew closer through their LDS faith, love of soccer and live music, and being together stargazing with each other in their Montana backyard. This couple is dedicated to their craft. Aysha helps run the family plumbing business and Brad is also working there as an electrician apprentice.

Brad summed up Aysha as nothing short of amazing and kept commenting on how much he cherished how every day, she gives everything her all.

After dating for seven months, they were engaged a few weeks back while next to a campfire.

For their Hyalite stargazing engagement portraits, we decided to highlight some of their favorite activities they love to experience together. We made a plan to meet up at the Hyalite Reservoir just outside of Bozeman for their nighttime, stargazing engagement portrait experience.

Upon our arrival at the snow-covered Hyalite parking lot, we were greeted with clear skies and a setting sun. We started by exploring the quiet, cold winter landscape with antique oil lanterns that lighted our path. As the stars came out over the frozen mountain scene, I made some long exposure photographs to make the sky really shine. Afterward, Brad made us a warm campfire to sit around. This couple came prepared with plenty of s’mores, cups of hot chocolate, and the arms of each other. We had found a perfect mountain atmosphere to showcase Aysha and Brad’s relationship.

It made for a really fun night.

Here are some of my favorite photographs I made during our evening together.

I’m so excited for these two and the good fortune that lies ahead for them. Congrats to Aysha and Brad! -M

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Story Mill Park Winter Engagement Portrait Session of Samantha & Jonathan

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  • Sunset-kiss-couple-during-Story-Mill-Park-Winter-Engagement-Portrait

Last week I photographed the Story Mill Park Winter Engagement Portrait Session of Samantha & Jonathan near downtown Bozeman, Montana.

These two Manhattan, Montana natives hired me to photograph their wedding day this upcoming August and wanted to showcase the winter Montana landscape in their engagement photo session. We decided to take advantage of the wonderful winter evening light we’ve been having lately here in the Big Sky country and walked around the historic Story Mill park area and Gardner Park in Bozeman for a couple of hours.

This time of year, the outdoor color palette yields a lovely mixture of golds, oranges, and blues and I wanted to maximize it. These two had a great attitude and were up for a fun adventure. Our Story Mill Park Winter Engagement Portrait session time went quickly as we enjoyed exploring the landscape and playing with their golden retriever.

These two are great. I’m thrilled with how their photographs turned out and I’m looking forward to photographing their big day later this summer. Congrats on your engagement you guys! -M

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Montana ends same-sex court marriage ban – Love Wins!

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  • same-sex-court-marriage-of-michaelanne-and-shannon

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of photographing the same-sex court marriage of MichaelAnne and Shannon in Bozeman, Montana!

In the early morning, news had spread around the State of Montana that a U. S. District Court Judge struck down Montana’s same-sex court marriage ban which effectively made the Big Sky country the 34th state to allow gay marriage. I was so happy to hear it. It was some good news that has been a long time coming. Positive change. Love had finally won!

So as I was sipping my late morning coffee and reading the Bozeman Daily Chronicle newspaper article about the court decision for ending the same-sex marriage ban, I got a surprise call from a friend. She let me know that my two friends MichaelAnne and Shannon had decided they had waited long enough. They we’re going to quickly tie the knot at the Gallatin County Law and Justice Center at 11:30 am.

They suddenly needed a wedding photographer!

I had about ten minutes to get to the other side of town and I wouldn’t miss such a special occasion. Grabbing my camera gear, I rushed out the door.

Sprinting up to the second floor, I arrived to find the Rev. Nina Grey, of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Bozeman performing free wedding ceremonies to LGBT couples in the hallway as they lined up to the County Clerk’s office to get their new marriage certificates. It was a beautiful and emotional scene to witness. There were many tears of joy. Sweet beautiful victory.

I photographed a few couples and then waited to see my two friends finally join in union. MichaelAnne and Shannon met in Eugene, Oregon has been together for the past 15 years. It was so special to see them finally tie the knot surrounded by close friends. I’m so excited for them and all the other LGBT couples that finally got their big day. Today love won! Congrats to all! -M

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I’ll be Home for Christmas – Travis Air Force Base Dad Surprises Daughter on stage at her Holiday Dance Recital

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For those of you who might not know, when I’m not making images of brides, I am a full time photojournalist at a San Francisco Bay Area newspaper. I wanted to share a recent story I had the pleasure of covering at my staff newspaper job in Fairfield, CA. I don’t tend to share many blog post between my wedding business and journalism website but this story was too good not to share. Also, Greener Visuals Wedding Photography is happy to announce that we are now accepting bookings for the 2012 wedding season! We would love to be apart of your wedding day. Once the end of the year celebrations subside, we would love to hear from you. Give us a call. Happy Holidays everyone! -M

Yesterday evening I covered a tear jerker of a story for my newspaper. We found out late in the day that a Travis Air Force Base military dad was going to be surprising his 4-year-old daughter and wife by coming home early and show up at the daughter’s dance recital here in downtown Fairfield. His plan was to sneak into her recital and then once she finished, he would walk out from the crowd and go to her on stage. I decided to camp out behind the curtains stage left and then when the moment came, rush out onto the stage to make my frame. It was pretty special to watch the daughter finish dancing then see her eyes grow big and tear up as she yelled out “Daddy!” and ran to hug him. Soon after, wife came up on stage too and there was a great family moment with the crowd applauding. I knew going into it what side of the stage he would likely walk up so I set up a strobe on the overhead balcony shooting down to the steps. I was thinking the moment could happen either on stage or down in the crowd. I compensated by aiming my flash so it would hit both. I got lucky that they were facing away from the audience and towards me. I think it worked out pretty well. I like how I can see the crowd in this image. The first image in this post is from when the daughter stopped her initial hug to look her father in the eyes. I think she was a bit stunned. Rightly so. It ran big on the front page of our paper this morning. You can read the accompanying article here. The local broadcast stations covered it as well. The rest are some other images from the event that I liked. It’s times like this that I feel really lucky to be working as a journalist. It warms the soul to see a young military family like this getting to spend Christmas together. Happy Holidays everyone! -M

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