naive dreams turning into a beautiful life.

it took me a long time to finally blog these, but I'm finally getting to it. this is Veronika. she is beautiful inside&out. she is very dear to my heart and even though life takes us in different directions and we don't always manage to stay in touch, I still think she is one of my closest friends. we are always able to connect as if no time has passed between seeing each other. these pictures are from a few special days this summer when she visited us. before we both got busy. and before she got married! phew, I remember the fifteen year old girls we were, talking about boys and wondering what our future husbands would be like. I remember our naive dreams. so much has changed and the naive dreams are suddenly becoming a beautiful messy reality. now she's married and I think back and look at how much we've both grown during our friendship. how much work God has done in our hearts, and continues to do so. I feel as if this visit was an end of one chapter, but it doesn't sadden me. I am excited for all the chapters ahead of us. 

by the way, she used to hate being infront of a camera at the beginning of our frienship. I'm happy to say that I changed that completely ;) and she proved to be really good behind the camera as well.

Janka

this could easily be another story post, if I asked my dear sister a couple questions. but I decided to write a short story post of how I see her not just through my lens instead. something about us. this absolutely breathtaking and warm sunny saturday morning in our backyard was more than I could ask for. the fall in all its beauty. I really hoped to get my sister infront of the camera. as soon as I found out she was coming I was preparing myself for the hours of trying to convince her to let me photograph her, because she rarely ever lets me. but as I laid down on our couch that morning, uninterested to do anything at all, she comes down asking me to go out and take pictures with her. I honestly thought I heard that wrong. but I didn't. and I got to spend the morning doing my favorite thing, photographing this gorgeous girl. and it's funny that I say a girl, because she's a woman now, and even I will soon leave my teenage years behind, but she's my sister, and I still haven't gotten used to the fact that we've outgrown our home and we don't share a room anymore, and she doesn't even have the same last name anymore. I'm still not used to that. 

Anička {stories}

a while ago I visited my dear, dear Anicka in the beautiful Ceske Budejovice. it was a goodbye before she left to spend a semester in Dublin. she took me to her favorite cafe, which I fell in love with instantly, so we could share our thoughts on anything and everything. she's my soul-mate, we figured that out soon after we became friends, we just get each other, and always respond to the other one's sentences with "I know, me too!". she's such a beautiful soul and I'm thankful that she finally let me photograph her and even answered a couple questions for me, so you can get a glimpse of what an amazing human being she is.

I miss you already, little bird.

the farewell to summer. and Drábek !

the summer came to an end.. you never know the last good day filled with warmth and sun is actually it until it's over and with this day the summer slowly shifted into grey and cloudy days, welcoming fall. I'm glad my last days of summer were spent with this awesome human being. I'm not going to write another touching post today, because this time she did, hah. anyway, I'm so happy we didn't give up on this crazy "long-distance / see you in a few months (hopefully) / hey I will live in Belgium now / write one letter a year" friendship. go check out her (freaking awesome) pictures too because she makes me look good in them haha.

Drábek .

wow, I can't believe that my friendship with this amazing person started in 2011 already, when she messaged me on flickr and we finally decided to meet up. I'm so thankful we did and that the distance, the months in between our adventures, and sometimes the months of not being in touch didn't make the friendship weaker in any way. though she lives in france, I lived in states for a year, she spends her summers an ocean away, we both suck at messaging each other regularly, I suck at getting back to her when she plans to see me... we still manage to make it work and it's always such an awesome time filled with laughter and weirdness with her. I think it's actually our craziness that makes it so cool, we get each other, we freak out over the same things, and we just don't need to pretend anything when we go on adventures. I can't believe she puts up with my emotional mess and weirdness. so yep, here's my cheesy post and here's to some more years of the friendship that started through photography. Drábek is the coolest! like I don't even know why someone so cool hangs out with me and Tim Burton haha. (miss you!)

 yep, she's so cool she draws me while we talk over a cup of coffee.

99% of our time together. and when I just won't stop taking pictures of her.

sisters, at last. {Denmark}

this never happens. all three of us taking pictures together.

the oldest one. (the special moment when she lets me photograph her)

last California photoshoot {Lauren}

one of my last mornings in California I got to do a photoshoot with this lovely lady, Lauren. she's an amazing photographer so we took pictures of each other, it's so cool to see how two people can take such different photographs at the very same place and at the same time. we had a lot of fun and I just wish we would have done it more often while I lived in SLO.