Behind the Lens of a Storyteller

There isn't much to say about a sign. Instead, I'll tell you how we each got here and share an article I wrote for the "Alabama Magazine." Travis was born in Ohio but moved to Florida when he was young. His brother-in-law got a job in Trussville and he moved with them... and lived in various areas of Birmingham before landing back in Trussville after we married. I was born in Birmingham. I met a man who lived in East TN. We fell in love, got married, and I moved there.... but then we divorced. I stayed for years, but about ten years ago, I left that beautiful area to move back to Birmingham - this time to Trussville.  Here I became a professional photographer and writer. I met my wonderful husband. I began learning ASL again and became part of a Deaf community. I started playing guitar on my church's worship team after a couple of decades of not playing.  I'm thankful we're here. Now, "A Trip to Trussville", published in the Alabama Magazine, Mar...

In 2017, my daughter and I were able to go on a trip to Ireland. It was special in many ways. 1 - My daughter turned 18 in the air on the flight to Ireland. Because at least then their legal drinking age was 18, I was able to buy my daughter her first legal drink... twice (I got to do it again here when she turned 21.) 2 - Due to moving back to Birmingham in the middle of my daughter's junior year in high school, we decided that home-schooling her would be better than changing schools for that amount of time. That meant she wouldn't graduate in the traditional sense - no walking across a stage, getting handed a diploma (or piece of paper as a place-holder for the diploma), and moving her tassel from one side to the other. When I was blessed with the resources to do this trip, I planned to hold a surprise graduation in Londonderry, a city in Northern Ireland where we have distant relatives. We were able to have it on a rooftop in the middle of the city and I live-streamed it (ba...

Personally, I love color. I rarely convert my photos to black and white. But this isn't my photo... it's my husband/photography partner's image. He was the one who suggested making it a black and white. Once we did so, it was obvious that it was a great choice. There is so much more detail showing with the black and white than would have been with color. For example, note the hay (I guess that's what it is) on its forehead and back. If you look closely enough, you can even see the very thin tendrils that come with that substance. Notice the many, many wrinkles and its deep-set eyes. Individual water droplets are clear. Even though I meant it when I said I love color, sometimes there are exceptions - and this image is one of them. The image above isn't available to order, but we have many other gallery images available as custom prints,  fulfilled by a professional lab, at  https://NovelPhotos.Instaproofs.com . If you have any questions, email NovelPhotos@yahoo.com...

There are times when life throws a curve ball... That night in July 2024 was one of those times.  There are many highs and lows in life. Even in the highs, there are lows. Even in the lows, there are highs. However, a totally unexpected high was sent my way that day. That summer my husband and I took a trip to Ohio to visit his family and to shoot an IndyCar race at the Mid-Ohio track. Traveling back to his uncle's house that evening, my husband/photography partner and I discussed about how exhausting the weekend had been and what we wanted to do the next day. Originally, we planned to go home two days later but the more we talked about options of things to do on Monday before leaving, we realized nothing sounded better than simply being home. Then, I happened to check my email and saw something that literally made my jaw drop. I had to look at it several times to believe it.  It was an email that said Travis and I had been approved for press credentials for a Cleveland Guardi...

Being in media has some really high highs - and some really low lows. I guess that's really like most jobs, though. It seems like everything was thrown at me this past week - so much so that I seriously considered not coming. However, this is one of the biggest dreams that my husband has had. He grew up really close to this track and this is where he fell in love with IndyCar racing.  Once he picked up photography, he had one of those dreams that's so big that you can't even really dream it - it's just an underlying, very, very small nudge that it would be wonderful if it ever happened. His dream was to shoot an IndyCar race as a credentialed photographer. The hope that he could shoot a race at Mid-Ohio was barely a flicker of a dream. Then this year, when I was once again looking at ways we might be able to do it, an unexpected way fell in my lap. Early in my writing career, I interviewed an IndyCar chaplain. I can't remember if I asked him or if he just told me ab...

This past January (2025), my husband and I had a job in Huntsville, AL. We would be done by lunch so we decided to stay in the area and kill some time. The night before, we explored what was in the area that we could do or shoot with our cameras.  I was intent on finding the "best place to go" while my husband already knew. He kept mentioning Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. He had never been there himself but he had heard about it and his description sounded intriguing. After looking it up, none of my options were even a close second. After I saw online what was going there, it was an obvious winner. Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge is a midway point for many species of ducks, cranes and songbirds. That alone was enough to make the decision easy, but reading on, I became extremely excited. On its 35,000 acres, a total of 300 species of birds, 47 species of mammals, 75 species of reptiles and amphibians, 115 species of fish, 38 species of freshwater mussels, and 26 species o...

It was a gorgeous fall day in north Alabama. My husband (boyfriend at the time) and I took the day off to go and visit a friend who lived in Double Springs whose home was just south of the Bankhead National Forest. Before heading to our friend's house, we first explored the woods and, of course, took lots of photos of the autumn-clad trees. Though we loved our friend dearly, it was hard to say good-bye to the beautiful scenery there.  However, our friend, a great cook, had made an extravagant lunch for us so it wasn't really that hard to head that way. We knew the food would be tasty and there would be lots of it. Plus, he also loved making dessert so we had that to look forward to. Lunch was ready when we arrived and it didn't take long before we were stuffed, so much so that we decided to wait on dessert. We helped him clean up the kitchen from the lunch mess and visited for a while in his tiny living room. As he was also my mentor, whenever I got to see him, I would brin...

In 2018, I was just beginning to figure out how to make my photography business work (writing wasn't even a dream at that point). I tried numerous ways to make money with my photography - some worked but most didn't.  In the meantime, I did rideshare and odd jobs to make money. My goal was to make a living doing only photography, but I was far from that goal. I knew the only way to make it there was to keep trying and use every opportunity possible. This meant a lot of volunteering or simply shooting on my own, both to practice and to build a portfolio to show potential future clients. Fast forward to the end of October. The church my then-boyfriend/now-husband and I attended was having a Fall Carnival. We volunteered to take pictures. I was excited about getting to take photos of the cute kids in costumes and was looking forward to giving them to the church to use. Little did I know what all would happen due to what happened that evening. As we always try to do, my then-boyfri...