This Member Monday is very exciting because we are featuring a blossoming photographer and her whimsical fashion photography. Haley Frost of Haley Frost Photography is still young, but she has tons of experience in art, design, and photography that she has been building upon over the years.

Haley Frost

Haley Frost is a 23-year-old fine art photographer based out of Fargo, North Dakota. From an early age, Haley demonstrated a strong interest in the visual arts by participating in various competitions and juried shows around Ottertail County. She has been featured multiple times at the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center in New York Mills, Minnesota throughout her time spent in the Perham School District.

Haley went on to start her college experience at M|State Fergus Falls in 2007 and graduated in 2010 with both AA and AFA degrees. She exhibited in multiple showings from 2008-2010 and has 3 pieces permanently on display at the campus. Currently, she is enrolled at Minnesota State University Moorhead where she is finishing up her Bachelors degree in Art with an emphasis in Graphic Design and Photography.

While school occupies the majority of her time, Haley still finds time to pursue her personal projects such as her small yet thriving business, “Haley Frost Photography”. Her work has a unique and dynamic display of conceptual art, landscapes, fashion, editorial, weddings, seniors, artist handcrafted books, and scanography. Haley’s work is known for its distinctive color, lighting, and surreal atmosphere.

Haley Frost Photography

Below is a collection of some of Haley’s imaginative fashion photography. Each image has a fantasy-like appeal to it that sets her photography apart from the norm.

A special thanks to Haley Frost for sharing these amazing shots with us.  Click here if you would like to check out her website for more fun photos!

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It’s Monday! And you know what that means….time to meet one of our members! We are excited for today’s post featuring Kristeen Marie Hudson and examples of her “too cute for words” baby photography. But Kristeen doesn’t stop at newborn sessions-this photographer/entrepreneur has even more up her sleeves!  Read on to find out more.

Kristeen Marie Hudson

Midwest photographer Kristeen Marie Hudson of Kristeen Marie Photography–a studio based in Indianapolis, Indiana– is passionate for all sorts of photography. She is always up for a new creative challenge and typically enjoys taking newborn, family, engagement, and wedding photography.

Kristeen studied computer graphics at Purdue University, but her interests were not limited to her creative side. While attending school, Kristeen found that she also wanted to cater to her analytical side, as she had both passion and talent for Business and Marketing. Running Kristeen Marie Photography was a natural fit for Kristeen, who was able to combine all of her interests – art, business, children, marketing, and entrepreneurship– in one.

There is something about capturing the perfect moment that gets both Kristeen and her clients excited. According to Kristeen “anyone can take a picture, but not everyone can capture a moment. Even in studio photography, there is still an opportunity to capture a moment that is not obvious, posed, or staged. Moment can be as subtle as a smirk from a newborn or as captivating as two newlyweds sharing a genuine connection.”

Kristeen Marie Photography

We love that Kristeen’s photography is a testament to her quote. In the below newborn sessions, she proves her talent for capturing the perfect moments on camera: babies’ natural smiles. Dressed in knit owl hats or dolled up in pink, both babies are absolutely precious.

Thank you, Kristeen, for sharing these adorable baby sessions with the Two Bright Lights community, and for sharing your story with us! For more information, please be sure to visit Kristeen’s website or read her blog.

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This Member Monday, we would like you to meet Alex and Natalie Nelson of Alex + Natalia Nelson Photography. With this photography team, love is on both sides of the camera! Read on to learn more about what a great pair Alex and Natalie make in photography as life and see how they capture love on camera with their clients.

Alex and Natalie Nelson

Their friends call them click happy. Take a closer look and we’re sure you couldn’t agree more. Alex and Natalie Nelson live to capture love stories. Maybe it’s because they are both romantics. They feel like the luckiest couple on earth to be able to work together doing what they love—while capturing the love of couples who quickly become friends, not just “clients”.

Alex and Natalie know that true beauty and magic can be found in the intricate details that surround them. They are well prepared to capture their clients’ love because they are very much in love themselves.

When they’re not snapping pictures, Alex and Natalie are traveling to new and exciting destinations in search of photographic inspiration and fine wine. Near or far, travelling and experiencing new adventures is one of their favorite things to do together! Much like wine, they know that everyone’s love is unique and grows better with time.

Alex and Natalie both have a soft spot for pets, and spend a lot of time helping homeless pets not only in their hometown of Wisconsin, but across the U.S. Natalie has co-founded a series of rescues to include Wish Upon a Paw. When not travelling the globe, their other favorite place to be is snuggled up at home with their own pet family, which includes four wonder cats-Rufus, Nemo, Nacho, and Pumpkin-and their loving, doofey pitbull, Kaiya.

Alex + Natalie Nelson Photography

As a couple themselves, Alex and Natalie know how important it is to make each engagement session unique to a couples’ personality. For the three engagement sessions below, they did just that! Each session is special to the couple in its own way.

Brooke and Aaron are a super fun, laid back couple. They love being outside and working out together, so Alex and Natalie tried to incorporate both activities into their fun-filled engagement session in the park.

Savannah and Christopher’s very first date was in the 9th grade. They kept in touch throughout High School and College, which lead to a second first date! Alex and Natalie took them to the historic Grand Opera Hour in in Oshkosh, Wisconsin as they both share a love for movies.

Allyson and Kelly first started dating in High School. Kelly was on the varsity football team and Allyson played on the volleyball team. Naturally, their engagement session was playfully held at their High School, with some secret kisses under the bleachers.

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This Member Monday, we are excited to meet one of our vendors, Rochelle Matheson of Hair-By-Rochelle, LLC. Rochelle has a passion for braids and incorporates them into her unique and beautiful hairstyles. Read on to learn more about Rochelle and see her talent caught on camera.

Rochelle Matheson

Rochelle Matheson doesn’t remember a time she didn’t want to do hair. After her mom taught her to braid at age 5, she insisted on braiding anything and everything that could be braided: hair, yarn, Barbie’s hair, even rug tassels. When a hair school instructor told the Buffalo, NY native she’d never find a salon where she could just focus on her passion–styling, up-dos and braids–she dreamed up the idea of Hair-By-Rochelle, LLC and hasn’t looked back since. While quick to answer that God, her husband Matt, family and friends, and helping people are what make her tick, it’s clear that Bud, her Boston Terrier, is also a constant source of joy in her world of hair styling. This “Jill-of-All-Trades” has tap danced her way through life for over 20 years, plays the flute, loves salsa dancing, and is more than charmed with Charm City’s history, culture, and diversity.

Hair-By-Rochelle

Hair-By-Rochelle, LLC is emerging as one of the greater Baltimore and Annapolis region’s most sought-after wedding and special occasion hairstyling businesses. By fusing their talents for hair artistry and customer service, Hair-By-Rochelle, LLC‘s stylists have garnered rave reviews for not only their styling, but also for their warm, relaxed manner that helps put every bride and client at ease. Hair-By-Rochelle, LLC is a diverse group of stylists committed to providing clients with beautiful, quality hairstyling that far exceeds their expectations.

Photo courtesy of bride

 Photo courtesy of Amanda McMahon Photography

Photo courtesy of Kitestring Studio Photography

Photo courtesy of Roman Griney Photography

A special thanks to Rochelle for sharing her beautiful hairstyles with our Two Bright Lights community and showing how valuable the right photography is for a wedding vendor’s business. And thanks to all the photographers who contributed photos for Rochelle’s feature!

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This Member Monday, we are exited to meet a relatively new addition to the Two Bright Lights community, Emily Lapish of Emily Lapish Photography. Just like the picture below of Emily and her husband dancing (courtesy of Lang Thomas Photography), Emily likes to capture her clients in the moment so all of their smiles and emotions are truly genuine.  Read on to meet Emily and preview some authentic family moments she has preserved for her clients.

Emily Lapish

Emily Lapish is a lifestyle and wedding photographer based in Charlotte, NC. She is mother to three boys and wife to one long-suffering and very supportive husband. In love with life and the beauty of relationships, she focuses not on overly styled or posed photography, but on authentic interactions between people. Moments fly by so fast, and she believes passionately in the necessity of capturing the beauty of life as it is right now. In a culture where we relate through technology and look to supermodels for our ideal of beauty, Emily is passionate about bringing back real, authentic interaction; about showing people how beautiful they truly are, just the way they are; about capturing the beauty of the bonds between dear ones.

Emily’s favorite things include Converse sneakers, baking (and making a gigantic mess doing so), Ryan Adams music, the color yellow, and dressing up as superheroes with her sons.

Emily Lapish Photography

Emily loves photographing families interacting together, unplanned and unposed. Below are some great examples of various family sessions she has worked on, including a family session on the beach, a newborn session at home, and a mother-daughter session at the horse stables.

Make sure to check out Emily’s website and blog for more great photography!

About Two Bright Lights

“I am absolutely thrilled about my experience with Two Bright Lights! Before discovering them, I had very little of my work published. The submission process was long and complicated, and I found myself too busy with my regular workflow to take the time to do it. Since signing up with Two Bright Lights only 4 weeks ago, I’ve had 9 publications! I’m hooked.” – Emily Lapish

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This Member Monday, we would like to introduce a new member of the Two Bright Lights community, Jennifer Starr of Shutter Starr Photography. Jennifer explained,”I am a newbie to Two Bright Lights, and am loving this relationship I have entered into. Get to see my work featured in online publications? Awesome! Make me take a more critical eye to my edits? Absolutely! Discover new resources that help me keep up with my industry? Bonus! TBL has made me want to up my game and strive for bigger goals. I can’t wait to see where it takes me!” We also cannot wait to see what is in store for Jennifer, as she already is making a place for herself in the Two Bright Lights sphere.

Jennifer Starr

Jennifer is a lover of all things creative. She lives for organizing and details. She fuels her day with coffee (a grande mocha latte, to be specific!) and draws energy from the people with whom she surrounds herself. Her family is a constant source of inspiration and an unfaltering support system. And she never, ever, sleeps. Ok, maybe she sleeps a little, but not much.

As a photographer, she considers herself a late bloomer. While she has always used some sort of camera as a vehicle for documenting all aspects of her life  (from her disc camera back in the 80s to the 35mm Minolta SLR that got her through the college years), it wasn’t until she reached her 30s that she decided to put her graphic design career on hold and pursue her other creative outlet. And then, Shutter Starr Photography was born. It ended up being a perfect fit, and she wished she had done it sooner.

Shutter Starr Photography

Within every wedding, event or session, Jennifer strives to make a connection with each person she captures, so that the photographs evoke emotions as well as images. She looks forward to pushing boundaries, taking on challenges, and seeing where this path leads her. And of course, she will document it every step of the way. The following are two examples of family portrait sessions where Jennifer truly captured the families’ emotions and love. From the summer sunflower session with the Wozniak Family to the fall apple-picking session with the Weisgarber Family, Jennifer caught happiness on camera.

A special thanks to Jennifer Starr for sharing her story and photography with the Two Bright Lights Community! Please click here to see more of Jennifer’s work.

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With Valentine’s Day tomorrow, we thought it was appropriate to feature two photographers who not only have a shared love for photography, but also each other. These two true loves are the photography team of My True VISION Photography and they fell in love on the other side of the camera.

Carlton and Kari Mackey

He’s a country boy from a small rural town in deep South Georgia with a love of vintage neckties, documentary filmmaking, and eclectic music. She’s a valley girl from suburban SoCal enamored by international travel, crossword puzzles, and etsy-style sewing projects. Both are moved by the ability to capture life in a moment’s notice through the art of photography–a mutual love they discovered within five minutes of their first meeting. They are Kari and Carlton Mackey, a husband and wife photography team that spent many an early date together with vintage cameras in hand wandering the streets of the Bay Area and later Atlanta in search of once-in-a-lifetime images. Today, they make up My True VISION Photography and are more in love with their craft than ever. And now, thanks to the recent arrival of their first-born son, they are even more sensitive to life’s precious and fleeting moments.

Photo courtesy of Loni Schick

My True Vision Photography

We are in such a Valentine’s Day Mood and so happy that we have beautiful examples of love in action from the cameras of Kari and Carlton. As a couple themselves, they really know how to capture the loving exchanges and special moments between their clients!

Shawnta and Brandon

Ashanti and Jonathan

What They Had To Say About Two Bright Lights…

“Our experience with Two Bright Lights has been incredible. The platform itself makes the process of submitting our images to potential publishers very seamless. It does not guarantee publication, but I think that the process of receiving the message that something is not a fit is as valuable as being accepted. It has helped us to hone in even more sharply on our skills and to pay even more attention to the fine details of the wonderful narrative of our wedding clients’ big day. The reward of being accepted for publication and walking into a store to buy that publication or receiving it in the mail can only be matched by the sound of a couple’s voice when they see the publication and call to thank us for helping them  officially be able to say that they had a “storybook” wedding.”

A special thanks to Carlton and Kari for sharing these words of wisdom with the Two Bright Lights community!  Please visit their website to see more of their work!

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This Member Monday, we are going behind the lens with Ashley Durance of Durance Images Photography. This travel-inspired photographer loves putting her passion to good use by sharing her experiences with others and giving back to the community. Ashley is truly someone worth admiring.

Ashley Durance

The talented Ashley Durance is a 25 year old wife and photographer living in British Columbia, Canada. Ashley’s interest in photography began a few years ago in 2007 while she was travelling throughout Canada as a flight attendant. The mobility of her job allowed her the opportunity to explore a wide variety of cultures and share her experiences with others from behind the lens of the camera. Her interest in the art of photography quickly grew and became her passion. In September 2011, after further travels to inspiring places such as Europe and East Africa, she started Durance Images Photography.

Ashley is currently in the process of partnering with The Father’s Heart Foundation in El Salvador and is hoping to make a trip there in the next couple of years to do some pro-bono photography for the opening of their new orphanage. She is always looking for ways to use photography to help other non-profit organizations.

Ashley is a mainly self-taught photographer and her passion continues to grow. She strives to achieve her goals in becoming a full time photographer as she branches into the wedding industry, with her first wedding this May, and her first destination wedding in June.

Durance Images Photography

Below are some wonderful examples of the various types of photography that Ashley enjoys. From engagement sessions, to expecting mothers, newborn babies, families, and travel portraits, (and soon to come, weddings!), Ashley is constantly capturing special moments.

A special thanks to Ashley for sharing her view from behind the camera with the Two Bright Lights community.  Please visit her website and blog to see more of Ashley’s work!

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This Member Monday, we are excited to meet the very talented Christina Vawter of Lucky Heart Photography. Christina has a mind for business and a vision for photography that make an unstoppable combo.

Christina Vawter

A marketing degree? Check. An MBA? Check. A corporate-ladder climb? Not for this girl. Self-described photo junkie Christina Vawter, owner and lead photographer for Lucky Heart Photography, had other plans for putting those two Butler business degrees to use – branding and building her own successful business.

Christina is serious about her craft – and not in a stick-in-the-mud kind of way. Passionate about providing top-notch customer service, she ensures each client receives a highly personalized experience. The result is professionally captured once-in-a-lifetime moments in both bold, vibrant colors and timeless black-and-white images.

Christina specializes in wedding, engagement and boudoir photography, but loves continuing to capture her clients as they grow into families and celebrate many happy anniversaries.

Lucky Heart Photography

As an alumna of Butler University, Christina was excited to photograph the wedding of Natalie Beck and Chris McGrath, because Chris is also a Butler University graduate who is just as proud of his alma mater. In fact, Butler’s Blue II made a special guest appearance at the reception, dressed in his best doggie bow-tie collar! Even the wedding and reception colors were navy blue and cream to match Butler’s colors.

A special thanks to Christina Vawter for sharing her story and passion for photography with the Two Bright Lights community. To see more of Christina’s photography, visit her website here!

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Many professional photographers have a story that begins with a love of photography. For Casey McGaffick, the owner of McGaffick Photography, things were much different.  Today we are excited to hear the story of her path to a career in photography and see how she caters to all of her passions at once!

Casey McGaffick

Growing up, Casey poured herself into sports, friendships, playing guitar, and her local church. She spent four years at Houghton College, in the study of business and psychology (personality and relationships) hoping someday to find a way to combine the two. Having come from a long line of entrepreneurs, owning her own business was an aspiration, as well.

She married right after college and entered the business world until the birth of her son. At that point she decided to leave her 9-5 job and instead don the label of “stay at home mom”.

She was restless, though, and looking to start a business that would allow her the flexibility of being home with her son and setting her own schedule. She began teaching guitar from her home, and that was and still is going very well, but she was looking to start something even larger.  As it is with most new mothers she became a bit picture crazy –she enjoyed capturing the emerging personality of her little boy. Clarity came when she helped her sister search for a wedding photographer and was unsatisfied with the results.  She then decided maybe this was a market niche she could fill and a lifestyle and schedule that would fit within her family.

She studied online, cleaned out the local libraries, picked up her first ever SLR camera, and four years ago began McGaffick Photography, which has been thriving ever since. She is so very passionate about her work, and photography is of course a major component of that. She would say though her passion is really the relationships and the personalities that she is able to capture and the joy of owning a business. Lifestyle photography became the unexpected combination of her two majors studied long before.

McGaffick Photography

The family portraits below are some fantastic examples of Casey’s work and how she combines her love for photography and relationship psychology. Her style is very emotional, relational, and intimate.  She loves to capture images that families can cherish for years to come, in remembering how things were “then …”

A special thanks to Casey McGaffick for sharing her story and photography with the Two Bright Lights community!

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