we can't wait to tell yours!
a story worth telling
we believe everyone has
WE LOVE EACH OTHER,
OUR THREE wild + wonderful KIDS,
AND WE REALLY, really LOVE WHAT WE DO
We're inspired by...
the outdoors, deep conversations, farm-to-table dinners, evenings under market lights, creeking with our kids, local/organic foodie culture, slow travel, deep blue lakes, rooms with natural light flooding in, discovering hidden gems, coffee shop culture...
We are Ray + kelly!
... and kind, artistic, creative individuals like you!
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these are our people
This is our crew. We've been raising them up right alongside this business of ours. Each one has been along with us to weddings and sessions - just in Kelly's belly. Don't worry, we won't actually bring them with - they're a little louder now. ;)
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This is where we live
We live in Viroqua, in the Driftless Region of southwest Wisconsin. It's the part of the state the glaciers missed, so instead of flat farmland you get ridges, coulees, and spring-fed creeks cutting through everything. It shaped how we see light and land. Most of our weddings still happen outdoors, on family farms and near lakesides and in backyards, from the Driftless to Madison to Door County.
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WHO WE ARE
we knew we wanted something different...
When we were searching for our own wedding photographer,
we had such a challenging time trying to find someone who moved beyond the staged, styled, posed images… everything just looked… well, the same.
We wanted our photos to reflect how all the big and small moments felt
We wanted the real, raw, intimate, and emotion-filled moments captured
We wanted to someday flip through pages of our future wedding album, to show our kids our young love (and incredible style) — to have direct access to the feelings + emotions of the day.
It was actually in those moments of searching + dissatisfaction that we decided to become wedding photographers, together, with a documentary, candid, real + sometimes raw approach.
And we're guessing that, if you're here, you might feel the same way.
Maybe you’ve seen photographer after photographer show photos that feel forced, overly posed, cliche, too ‘pretty’ or too ‘clean’, staged or just what feel like carbon copies of everyone else’s wedding.
Put simply, we wanted the story of our day captured beautifully + honestly.
years
we've been married
20
hilarious, creative, inquisitive children we've created
3
weddings we've photographed
+
275
national parks
we've trekked
34
states
we've visited as a family
46
We're on a treasure hunt for beauty. We love documenting couples in love.
There's something about capturing a couple as they share a kiss, a dad tearing up while he walks his girl down the aisle, or a grandmother watching the vows from the second row, already knowing what they cost. Some of our favorite frames from any wedding have the oldest people in the room in them. We crave the outdoors, and real-life moments that hold a feeling long after the day is over.
Let’s capture a feeling.
Being photographers, side-by-side, for the past 19 years has been the most rewarding career we could have ever imagined because we get to document something that we truly believe in.
We photograph a select number of weddings per year to ensure that our couples receive our undivided attention and the best experience we can possibly give them.
this is our dream job
The couples who feel most awkward usually love their photos most, because we never asked them to perform.
Over the 19 years we've been photographing together, we've realized there are a few things our couples care deeply about: candids matter, real moments are better than posed or forced, and your story is unique and deserves to be captured that way.
We believe we all remember how we felt when a photo was created, so instead of unnatural posing and awkward prompts, we create and document experiences between the two of you.
how we're different
Ray says hi and starts making photographs. The camera is at his eye maybe half the day, which is on purpose. The rest of the time he's just looking, and that's how he ends up with the frames where nobody remembered to perform.
He sees compositions everywhere, in a doorway, a window, a line of trees, and he's usually a few steps ahead of where the day is headed. He likes the blue light. When golden hour is finished and everything goes cool and blue, when the lakes turn dark and people become silhouettes, that's his hour.
RAY - As Told by kelly
Kelly gets to a wedding and starts talking. She wants to know who everyone is before the day gets going, and it isn't a technique, it's just how she is. It's also why people stop noticing she's working.
Wedding days carry a lot of anxious energy. Kelly brings the opposite of that, usually without saying anything about it. It's in how she moves through the day. Her frames are the more composed of the two of us, more deliberate, and she goes to the emotion in a room before she goes anywhere else. Golden hour belongs to her. When the light starts sliding off during speeches, she feels it in her body, and I can tell from across the room.
Kelly - as Told by Ray
There's barely a wedding where somebody doesn't say something about how easily we work together. Twenty years in, it's a dance we've done a lot, and we still love it.
golden hour,
coming home,
desserts,
Organization systems,
clean laundry,
checking things off a list
kelly loves
blue hour,
traveling,
espresso,
pickleball,
audiobooks,
A question that doesn't close
ray loves
natural light
can't live without
all creatures great + small
favorite show
soccer
CURRENT HOBBY
creating a wild + free childhood
PASSIONATE ABOUT
gardening
CURRENT OBSESSION
our family
Sound like what you're looking for?
If you feel like you connect with us and our work, we would LOVE to hear from you!
