ABOUT the photographer
HI! I’m Rachel
I’m a lifelong midwest gal. I live in Iowa City, Iowa with my husband and two daughters. As a Mom myself, I know how exhausting and overwhelming this parenthood thing can. I also know how tender, fragile, and completely beautiful this season of life is.
That’s why, after being a stay-at-home-Mom for six years, I decided to pursue my dream career as a professional photographer. My kids were nearing school age and I was asking myself what in the world I was going to do with myself when they didn’t need me for every waking moment of their days.
I’ve been a photographer since 2009 – it started as a hobby that connected my husband and I in the early years of our relationship. When we started our family I transitioned my preference from photographing nature with its organic shapes and the impacts of light, to photographing my children’s precious dimpled smiles and sweet eyelashes. I loved it and started photographing people outside of our family.
I’m passionate about love, genuine connections, art, and nature. These all play leading roles in how I photograph and connect with my clients – and why it’s not uncommon for me to shed a few happy tears behind the camera as I’m photographing your family’s love for one-another.
what I believe in
001.
Raising good humans is the most important job anyone can ever have.
002.
You can never have too many books. Especially children’s books; I don’t care how old you are.
003.
Time spent outside can reset most bad days. Unless if it’s -36°F out there, then maybe not.
My STORY
I’ve been a pilates instructor, editor, event coordinator, food writer, graphic designer, stay-at-home-Mom…
and during all of that, I was a hobby photographer. It took me years to realize that the career I’d been craving and searching for had been right there under my nose all along.
It was time to push myself out of my comfort zone – to take the dive to become the artist I had always wanted to be:
a professional photographer.
These are a few of my favorite things:
Iowa sunsets, Iowa City’s book culture, trips to visit my sisters in Minnesota, jasmine pearl white tea, dance parties with my kids (complete with a disco ball #obviously), interior design, landscape design and urban farms, dark chocolate peanut butter cups from Trader Joe’s (#ohmygoodness), Seinfeld on repeat.
