Hi, I'm Holly!

I’m going to be honest – I don’t like to be heavy. I don’t like dwelling on the sad parts of my story, but unfortunately, my photography “why” is pretty sad and heavy. There’s something to be said about the magic of capturing a moment in time so that you can always remember exactly what your kiddos looked like when they were so little – but photography is a priceless, tangible memory that can be cherished when you no longer can hug those you love the most.

June 2022, I had everything to look forward to – a baby on the way and everything going my way – except for the lingering stomach pain my Dad had that the doctors just couldn’t figure out. At the end of October, everything going my way crashed and the worst year of my life kicked off.

After a birth that didn’t go at all as planned, my mom sat down beside me to break the news that my dad had been diagnosed with stage IV Pancreatic cancer. I wasn’t told this at the time, but it’s a form of cancer that has a 5-year survival rate of 1%. It’s not a good one.

Within three months, he was gone.

In 2018, I had decided I wanted to get photos taken of my little family (myself, Chase, and our furbaby, Harper) for Christmas cards and invited my parents. I had a few photos of us together at my wedding but these were the first photos I had taken with my parents in years. (I might have still had baby teeth in our last family portrait.)

I had no idea how meaningful those family photos would be until after my dad died. I had a beautiful, tangible record of him making my mom and I laugh – something he did every day he was alive. I don’t remember how much we spent on those photos but I wish we had spent more – I wish we had gotten them every year and that I had hundreds of beautiful memories to look back upon.

Three months after my dad passed, we took Harper in to the vet to get some pre-lab work done for a routine teeth cleaning. Her white blood cell count was through the roof. Something was wrong. Within a few weeks, we had a diagnosis of metastatic spleen cancer – and even after driving to Cincinnati to visit a cancer specialist, we were told our only option was palliative care – and that we had weeks left with Harper. This time, I immediately scheduled family photos to get a beautiful record of our family before Harper left us.

Those photographs are priceless.

I don’t want to just speak to those of you who love doing annual photos and convince you I’m your girl. I also want to speak to the families that let the years slip by, undocumented. I get it. Sometimes things just seem so *normal* that it doesn’t seem worth it to capture the moment with a photo session.

I’m telling you that those mundane, average years are worth remembering. Your family is precious.