Pilgramers | Creative Connect

i'm on day two of the same shirt. thats how you know its been a great couple of days, i forget to bath and or change clothes. i know thats gross sorry. 

yesterday was such a great day. we had fantastic weather this past weekend and i do believe it carried into monday. church was so good yesterday and i'm excited for next next week. (this week i'll be in ohio for a wedding whoo!) after church i just wanted to be outside so i drove to a park and sat on a bench for two hours. i just sat there. i had a book but i didn't read it, i just sat and enjoyed the breeze and talked to jesus and had the best time. when i finally made it to the coffee shop to get work done i almost fell asleep several times. so not much work was accomplished...

so raise your hand if you've heard of pilgramers?! well if you haven't you should get on the ig right now and follow their page. just a bunch of fantastic guys trying to connect creatives together and last night was their first creative connect launching them off for the summer. it was so fun to sit around in a hot coffee shop and talked about our interests and what we do. i got to meet so many great new friends and i'm (still) so excited about all the things going on. we also got to adventure around our city and take photos which was so great because a lot of the time i miss taking photos for fun. 

the pilgramers headed out this morning and will be hosting more creative connects in cities all around the country. (all that information is on their page!) i want you all to go and meet them and hear their hearts. plus meeting other creative people in your city is the best. also you can watch a little film that made me cry here. they are heading to Rochester ny next! spread the word! 

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Mama | Portrait

all i know is that i loved her the minute she kissed my cheeks.

all i know is that she is beautiful.

all i know is that she is colorful.

all i know is that her eyes hold many stories.

all i know is that her cheeks have smiled over and over.

and that her strength shows in the way she walks. 

all i know is that i wish we spoke the same language because i would sit down for hours with her and listen to anything she said. 

all i know is that i could do this sort of thing for the rest of my life and be happy.

thank you so much mama for letting me photograph you and i hope you know by my (huge) smile, that i loved every minute of it. you are lovely. 

Noelle Maternity | Oregon

you can say it out loud. she is perfect. i still can't believe i got to work on the west coast. at cannon beach. i've been dreaming of seeing this place for years and to get to fly across the country and shoot on it. gosh, i'm just happy.

this is the second half of our pnw maternity session from march. if you missed the first half you can see it here. i am constantly torn between washington and oregon. which do i love more? how could you pick?!

we laughed about the fact noelle matched her surroundings perfectly on both shoots. without even trying! she is a gem that one. here are a few of my favorites from our time on the beach!

Noelle Maternity | Washington

my friend noelle is beautiful. my mother calls her, "she of the big brown eyes." i appreciate how lovely she is not pregnant. but her loveliness shot over the top when she started showing a baby bump and as we talked about her maternity photos and what we wanted to do, she said she wanted her little boy to see where he came from. (the west) and so we photographed in two incredible west coast spots. Mt Rainier and Cannon beach.

this project was honestly my dream come true. i was freaking out the entire time we were working with that mountain right next to us. and every shot i kept squealing. it was such an amazing experience and i am so so proud of the way these photos turned out. praise God from whom all blessing flow man. 

here are a few of my favorites from washington.

Fort Ann Clan.

i started out the morning with walking across the room bragging to heather that i was blogging so i win. (inside joke.) it was all going so smoothly until i realized at the edge of the room that the heating pad was tucked inside my overalls and the chord was still plugged into the wall.

you win some you lose some...

that has been the comfort level this week though. lots of overalls and pajamas. lots of dirty hair and paint covered hands, (okay its mostly on my feet?! what the?) and no worries of judgement on my grandmother sweaters. its been so nice. so pleasant, to just sit and edit, or paint of even eat the worlds yummiest yogurt. i should really visit more often.

i am going to miss this place and its people and its yogurt and cheese.

Wednesday Sessions | Simon

i've heard a million times, "you can't meet people on the internet." there is danger there for sure, but in the business i'm in, that's where you meet most people...

Simon was no different. he emailed me about booking a session and after thorough stalking (hehe sorry buddy.) i determined he was a real person and even better, that he loved Jesus. after booking we assured each other neither of us were axe murderers and coffee in hand we (and also camera in hand...my hands were full...) we started a walk. while shooting we talked about all kinds of things, nashville, coffee, orphans, placements we are in the family line, (yay fourth kids!) where we went to college, and the list goes on.

after that chilly day i can assure you i'm keeping him as a friend, anyone who shares a love of donuts and crazy socks is someone you need in your life. Simon is the first official "new" friend i made in Nashville and he's neat, just like nature.

also can we talk about how fantastically winter ish these are. love that winter light so hard.

Wednesday Sessions | Crozier Family

talk about a sweet family! i was so excited to photograph this bunch back in December since i got to tennessee, this family has welcomed me in. then i broke a window in their house...long story. but none the less, they teach me things about the Lord i've never thought about, encourage me with the love they have for each other and occasionally give me the puppy fix i need to continue life without pete. i love this family a lot.

Little man | Fall session

you know my love for this little boy. and i got to travel all the way back to virginia to photograph him this past fall. we went to the park and played (okay we just pushed him on the swing...) then we tried our best to bribe him into smiling for pictures. when it comes to kids i'm never above dancing around, making crazy faces and doing whatever it takes for a smile.

i love the ones we got during this session. boy is he cute.

oh and one more because you know, we are pretty funny...

McMahon Family Session

i remember sitting on the floor of my living room, flipping through old photo albums i had looked at a million times and marveling at what i looked like as a baby. i loved seeing the goofy old glasses my parents wore when they were young, the houses we used to live in and the dogs that had long passed. i love pictures. i love them printed out and scrapbook. i love holding old, brown, falling apart photos of my great, great, great grandparents and laughing at what people used to wear.

this all leads to the belief that family pictures are so important. even if you hate getting your picture taken (cough cough nina mcmahon...) one day your children might sit on your floor and look through them and laugh and love it so much they come back and hour later to do it again.

i always tell people we aren't taking pictures, we are catching memories. and if you look at it like that, it really isn't that bad at all.

here are some memories i caught, er...forced on one of my favorite little family's in the whole world. i love you guys!

Travel | Idaho | Nampa

i forgot to blog today clearly. look what time it is! this is ridiculous. good this the excitement of this photo is wearing off on me now...and clearly i was really excited about idaho, so i will be excited now in telling you about it.

marly lives right outside of boise in a town called nampa. i like to say nampa like i'm from Wisconsin. it sounds really funny.

nampa is cute and cool and is in this bowl with mountains all around. its so beautiful and when you drive in the country it has a different look that open fields over here. something to do the light effect probably.

also can i tell you about the weather? constant awesome breeze blowing through, it did magical things with my hair. marly showed me her first house and then we drove around with the windows down. it was one of the most peaceful days. we stopped on the road her friends live on to snap to pictures.

for as long as i live these will be some of my favorite pictures. i can remember exactly what is felt like, what it smelled like and the feeling i had standing there. i have a few moments like that in life, maybe sometime i'll tell you about them.

Summer Land | Colorado | Erin McCool

Hello everyone!

My name is Erin, and first I’d love to take the time to thank Abbey for featuring some of my photos on her blog! I am from Iowa (holla back, Iowans!!), but I have been living in Colorado for the past two years. I would gladly show you tons of pictures of Iowa, but in general, I’ve found that more people tend to think Colorado is more interesting. Beats me.

So, back to Colorado. To sum it up in one grammatically challenged sentence, Colorado is really, really ridiculously good looking. There’s not a day I drive home that I don’t marvel at how beautiful the mountains are and how fun it is to watch them shift before your eyes as you drive. I love being able to pick out canyons and random landmarks across town. I love how I’m 10 minutes from really excellent hiking trails, but I’m also an hour away from a big city. This is me contributing to an interactive art piece outside the Denver Museum of Modern Art. People are supposed to finish this sentence: “Before I die, I want to…”

What would you write?

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I also kind of really like the granola people. They’re quirky, really interesting looking and they care about things. (yay things!) Also, if you haven’t heard of Chacos, get some. You’re feet will smile for the rest of your life.

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There are a lot of pretty places in the world. However, Colorado has the ability to touch a sense of majesty within myself that I’ve never known before. Here are some photos of some of my hikes around town.

Wildlife is a fun thing to see. Big horn sheep are native to most of Colorado. I stumbled upon this after I crested a hill on a hike, only to find this herd just mad doggin’ me.

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Also, I spotted this itty bitty elk in Rocky Mountain National Park. Isn’t he cute?

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Speaking of, look at this view in Rocky Mountain National Park. The winding creek is stunning.

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This is a mountain goat spotted on top of a fourteener! He’s so woolly! Also, sometimes I feel like I’m channeling my inner mountain goat when hiking a fourteener.

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Now, that gets me on another topic. Fourteeners! Fourteenrs are mountains that are reach above 14,000 feet (trees stop growing around 11,000 ft!) and there are a little over 50 (I think 53) in Colorado. Some super intense people have climbed them all. I have only done 5 to date, but they’re always really beautiful and fun. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

After hiking a Fourteener, it has been my tradition to visit this place that is so obviously blessed by the Lord Himself. Praise Him!

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One interesting fact is that I moved to Colorado the summer of the Waldo Canyon Fire, about which you may or may not have heard. At the time, it was the most destructive fire in Colorado. It was kind of a scary time for me because I had never even thought about wildfires before I moved to Colorado! Also, a lot of my belongings were trapped in a place that was literally encircled by the fire. Gives a new meaning to the simile “spreading like wildfire”. Anyhow, just in case you’re curious, here are some pictures taken during and after the fire.

The last super cool place I want show you is The Great Sand Dunes National Park. This is in southern Colorado and it is SOOOOO cool. The dunes seemingly pop up out of nowhere. Lots of families will go in the spring and pretend it’s the beach. Also, you can “sandboard” down the huge dunes. Sadly, most of my photos from the dunes are on my instagram account (@evmccool if you’re interested in them and other Colorado pics). These two pictures do not do justice, but it does give you a little taste.

Well, that’s all I have for you today! Thank you to Abbey again for featuring me on her blog!  It has been an absolute pleasure to share with you all. Thanks for reading!

(abbey now!!)

wow. what do i even say? first of all Erin i laughed so much because you are hilarious and i can hear you saying all of this! Colorado is beautiful and so different from anything i've seen! i can't say i'm adding it to the list of places to visit because its been at the top of the list since Erin moved there. i loved this summer land but the overwhelming emotion it made me feel was missing my good friend. Erin is one of the most beautiful souls and someone i could always feel 100% at ease with. if you are ever in the same state, or have a chance to meet her i recommend it like i recommend wawa coffee. which is to say all the time and a lot. thank you so much ms mccool for this lovely tour of your home!

Summer Land | Lynchburg VA | Chelsea Francis

Hi! I’m Chelsea Francis, and I’ve known Ms. Abbey Sargent for over 5 years now. I met Abbey when we first came to live in Lynchburg, VA in the whirlwind that is moving to college. Abbey, some of the greatest people we’ve ever met, and myself were shipwrecked two miles from campus at some hotels our college had recently remodeled into dorms. It sounds like a horrible set up to type it all out, but it wasn’t. It was honestly one of the best things that could have happened to me. You know what happens when you’re sort of exiled? You become friends with those around you who are in a similar situation. I wouldn’t change my Lynchburg Inn friendships for anything in the whole world.

But enough about that, and the nostalgia I feel for the Lynchburg Inn.

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Lynchburg! Lynchburg, Virginia is either the worst place in the world or the best place in the world depending on whom you ask about it.  I belong to the second camp of human beings, though I didn’t always.

Lynchburg, VA is nestled right under the Blue Ridge Mountains and because of it’s geological layout and location you can see some mountains from just about anywhere you are.  It reminds me of my Carolina home, which is really close to where Noah’s Summer Land was.

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Lynchburg, through and through, is a college town. There are six sizeable colleges that I can count within Lynchburg city proper or just outside of it. With that being said there is a never-ending supply of college students circulating through the city, and sometimes they choose to stick around past their graduation date. Lynchburg is undoubtedly a launchpad for other places for most of the people who end up here. But this doesn’t make it any less great.

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My husband and I live in downtown Lynchburg, and it’s my favorite. The architecture is very much a hodgepodge of decades, but some new businesses have begun renovating some of the cool old buildings and the city is sprucing up the landscaping downtown. It’s coming along quite nicely. More than anything though, it just feels like home.

Some of Lynchburg’s quirks include the fact that we have a wonderful minor league baseball team that feeds to the Atlanta Braves, quite a few food trucks, a community market, and enough hills to make my calves hurt just talking about them. In the summertime we have a lake that just about everybody and his or her brother shows up to on the weekends. We even have an amazing flower farm! In the wintertime if it snows everything shuts down except for the Domino’s pizza in downtown and the White Hart, most everyone’s favorite coffee shop if they have a favorite. Lynchburg has a wonderful parks and rec department and all kinds of trails, parks and picnic areas that you can use for free. Which is awesome! Lynchburg is also historically rich. There are a ton of markers signifying Civil War era battles and landmarks. A couple of famous people are even from here Ann Spencer (a beat poet and gardener), Keenan Thompson (comedian and best friends with Kel on Nickelodeon), and Connie Britton(Friday Night Lights, Nashville).

That’s about the extent of my Lynchburg knowledge. I’m glad Abbey asked me to write about this wonderful place & I’m glad you read it! Thanks!

(abbey now!)

i cannot even tell you how much i love lynchburg! and something that Chelsea didnt tell you is that half of these images are shot on film! she and her husband tucker own a business called Timber Hitch and you can check it out here! its one of lynchburgs latest gems! thanks so much Chels for this fun run around one of Virginia's finest!

Summer Land | Long Island | Brenda Franco

Hi friends! I’m Brenda from Brenda Franco Creative and this right here is my first guest blog post so, naturally, I’m pretty pumped that Abbey asked me to share about the greatest island on earth – especially during the summer months.

Long Island, New York is a treasure. It’s about a 3 hour drive from the east end to the west and about a 40 minute drive from the north shore to the south shore. To the west is New York City, to the east are the famous Hamptons as well as vineyards, farms, and beautiful landscapes that will take your breath away.
One of the most renowned cities in the world – New York City
Manhattan

Brooklyn

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Classic pictures that I’m sure you’ve seen before, but for me, they take my breath away. I can’t spend a summer home and not go here. It is so full of life! Whether it’s Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, or any other place – New York does not lack in character (or pizza, my favorite, and another reason why you should visit this place).

Now to my favorite part of : the water, beach, and ports and port towns of Long Island.

(Port Jefferson)

Montauk – “The End” of Long Island

Long Island Sound – North Shore

And there you have it. Just a little snippet of what a summer on Long Island looks like. Of course, this treasure of an island is made complete by good company and great food (have I mentioned pizza?). It’s hard not to fall in love with this place and I am so thankful for the opportunity to be able to share a bit of it with you! Thank you so much Abbey!

(abbey now!)

thank you so much Brenda for this visit to new york! i love the pictures and do indeed want to visit! i can not say enough about how great Brenda is! i hardly know her at all in real life but her encouragement and love is hard to compare to. she is a real, genuine soul and if you have any chance to get to know her, i highly recommend it! she is doing a project this summer called The Island Project and you can check it out here! its a really great photography blog and you really get a great feel for Long Island.

The Price Ladies -Family Session

i'm not sure if there is anything in this world more beautiful than a family that loves each other. this family session was probably the best (and most fun!) one i've ever been a part of. there was so much laughter and joy and the price ladies were all so darn good looking, i couldn't help but get magic with a lens. here are just a few of my favorites from our time at smith mountain lake!

a grand adventure

there really is nothing like graduating. one of the best days of my life was the day i graduated college. it’s a bit of a story to explain but ill just say it was a day i learned a lot about myself. and a lot of praying came to fruition.

i love graduations. i feel like they are some of the most important things to attend. someone can never feel too supported. and i think a lot of the time the graduates life kicks in right after and everything is so overwhelming, its good to have a lot of people to cheer you on.

i got to watch a bunch of really great people graduate this may. i got to sit with their families and yell my lungs out when they got their diplomas. i got give them huge hugs and jump around in excitement for them. it was a beautiful day and even though we got trapped on a bus and it took us all afternoon to find something for lunch, i would do it all over in a heartbeat. i love my people and i loved spending four(or five) years with them. what a beautiful moment.

Summer Land | New Project

^^this picture looks summery and adventurey right?

 

here it is. this summer is going to be the craziest and most fun summer i think i will ever have. (maybe.) its jam packed with weddings, travel, moving, adventuring and exploring. i won't tell you everything because that would just spoil all the fun! but i wanted to do a project that reflects the adventure that this summer will be.

and also i needed help because i'm going to be so. stinking. busy.

so here is the deal. starting the first tuesday in june (tomorrow...) i'm starting a project called summer land. for thirteen weeks i'll be hosting thirteen different photographers/friends as they show you a little about their homeland. since this summer will be full of travel i thought it would be the perfect way to travel america (and a few places around the world) without even leaving our rooms! i couldn't be more excited see these places through the eyes of the people who call it home! i think it will be a wonderful adventure and i hope you ride along with me!

keep your eyes peeled as they say.