Lauren Lee Mural

In Arizona, we have soooo many talented muralists and gorgeous murals. I am absolutely amazed sometimes at the talent of muralists that exists here in the Phoenix area. By being involved in downtown Phoenix, I have gotten to know a lot of the muralists, or at least become a little bit acquainted with them. At least enough to follow them on Facebook and see what they are up to!

In 2012, I met Lauren Lee when she was painting for the Phoenix Festival of the Arts, organized by Hugo Medina and Joseph Benesh. I already knew of Lauren Lee as the painter of the Three Birds mural on the greenHaus building on Roosevelt Row. Since then, she has painted so many other enchanting murals. Some of them are in Tempe, and since I live in Tempe, I will purposely drive home down streets where I know they exist in order to see them. One of my absolute favorites is Don’t Wake the Dreamer on Hardy near 5th Street.

When I met up with Eliza, pictured here, and her mom, we first met on the Arizona State University campus. I love doing photos there because you get a great variety of backgrounds with nature and cool looking buildings, and it’s never crowded on the weekends. It’s got a lot going for it, but it’s not very colorful. I wanted Eliza to have some images with bright color, so right before sunset, we headed to see Don’t Wake the Dreamer. Scroll down to the end of these images to see the soft, blurry, dreamy last photos. It was getting very dark at this point, so we didn’t have much light, hence: soft, dreamy, blurry.

Which seems pretty much perfect! Eliza was finishing up one part of her life and on to the next. I hope her dreams for this next part of her life come true!

Are you looking for high school or college grad senior photos? You graduating people are one of my absolute favorite subjects to photograph! We go all over and have a little adventure and get tons of good stuff.

Contact me here if you are looking for a photographer! Tell me a little bit about what you are looking for!

Photo Booth for Phoenix Style Collective

I’m available to photograph “photo booth” style images for events - especially for birthdays and weddings. Message me if you are wanting a photo booth photographer at your event!

Maricopa Sunflowers

My dear sweet little nephew Jonathan and I took off on an adventure to find sunflowers. I had seen people on Facebook post that there were sunflowers in Maricopa. So I did some internet searching and figured out where they might be.

First Jon and I went to In N Out, because this growing boy is always a little hungry. Usually the In N Out near us doesn’t take too long, but oh boy was it a long wait this time, so we got on the road to Maricopa a little later than I wanted to.

We made it to Maricopa and then I just had to guess which direction to drive on Ralston Road, which is where I thought maybe the sunflower fields were located. I drove south and drove all the way to where Ralston Road ends, but we didn’t find any fields of sunflowers. We did however find orchards of pecan trees, and a super overgrown abandoned plant nursery with huge palm trees in rows (the place looked haunted in the waning light of the day - I wish badly that I could wander through it -all the coolest places have No Trespassing signs, those signs are the bane of photographers everywhere.) We came across the Maha Ganapati Temple and fields of corn surrounded by wild sunflowers - those smaller sunflowers that grow more like bushes. The wild sunflowers were a good find, and I could see going back to use them as a photography backdrop.

When we couldn’t find the sunflowers, I turned around and went north on Ralston Road and just a few minutes before the sun disappeared behind the Palo Verde Mountains, we found the thick jungle of sunflowers. There were a few other people there taking photos. Jonathan and I got out of the car and started exploring. He was so curious and I think he looks so cute wandering around the rows. I’m so glad it was a long summer day and the sun sets so late and that we found the flowers just in time! Jon really did not want to go back to the car after it was too dark to see very well. I’d love to go back and see the sunflowers before they are harvested.

When these sunflowers are in bloom again, I am thinking of taking photos here. If you would like a sunflower portrait session here with me, fill out this form and I will email you to let you know of session times.

Rocker 7 Farm Patch Sunflower Portraits

FILL OUT THIS FORM IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN BEING NOTIFIED WHEN FALL 2022 SUNFLOWER SHOOTS ARE ANNOUNCED! (Click Sunflowers for sunflower shoot info or Other photo shoot if you are interested in something else.)

Rocker 7 Farm Patch is a magical place - acres of sunflowers under wide open skies with the Estrella and White Tank Mountains in the distance. You drive out into the country and down a dirt road to the parking lot of the farm. Admission is only $6 and then there are acres of sunflowers, a pumpkin patch, and fields of cotton and maize to wander through.

I’ve now photographed at Rocker 7 Farm Patch for two years in a row, in Fall 2020 and Fall 2021 and I plan to photograph there this October and November in 2022 when the sunflowers are in bloom.

This family was a delight to photograph and I love how their images turned out. Something to know about these photos as you scroll through is that most of them actually had people in the backgrounds. I photoshopped the people out of the images. If you are wanting to experience the sunflowers with less crowds, I recommend going on a Thursday or Friday. When I went on those days, we pretty much had the place to ourselves!