Alison

Portrait Session
November, 2018

The first pictures I ever took on my poor camera.

My brother in law had just left on his mission to Mexico, so his camera was mine! I had just finished Photography 101 from a class at UVU, and I was EAGER to start putting my new knowledge and new equipment to use!

I called up my friend Alison and begged her to come and model for me. We coordinated her outfit and got her all dressed up. Then we hit the streets (and by that I mean Center Street in Provo) and got to work!

Alison had a killer smile, and I was seriously thinking how lucky I was to have my first session be with someone who was such a natural model! Of course, Alison and I have been friends since we were six years old, so we were totally comfortable and joking around with each other the whole time!

Even from the beginning I knew what I loved, and what I wanted to do– wedding photography! You can see Ali’s ring featured in a couple of these shots already, and that’s why. (You can see a recent wedding of mine here!) Her and her cutesy hubby had gotten married a year before in the city where we grew up in Texas!

Her ring had this gorgeous diamond on the side, so I definitely wanted to grab a shot where you could see both the sides and the front of the ring.

We found a couple of cute backdrops down Center Street, and learned about some cool new shops too! It’s crazy how you can drive down a street so many times, and never really see what’s around you until you walk it.

Once we got bored of Center Street, we decided to go somewhere more nature-y to finish up. Problem was, we didn’t know where to go! But I figured, you drive long enough, you’re bound to run into a field or a mountain at some point, right?

So we hopped in the car and drove aimlessly towards the mountains in the distance.

Turns out my logic was pretty flawed because we could not find open scenes of nature anywhere. This experience is actually one of the reasons I decided I needed to make a location guide for all of my clients! But that wasn’t in place yet, and so Alison and I stopped in the middle of this neighborhood, and next to one of the houses was an empty lot with some trees.

I looked across the street and was pleasantly surprised to realize the little mailbox area was nestled into a small patch of yellow wildflowers!

We did some crazy things for these shots. Alison had to climb up on top of the wood railing, and I had to climb on top of the giant metal boxes. I was literally laying on top of them! But Ali’s a champ, and the flowers were definitely worth it.

Alison, thank you so much for being the first person willing to suffer in front of my camera for me as I started this journey that led me down the path to being a photographer. You will always be one of my closest friends, and I love you!