(a compilation/slice conglomeration of our lives for the past nine months or so, with a smattering of thoughts on motherhood and creating in and around and through and because of it.)

your creative work can come back to support you, give voice to new experiences out of the dust—
But only if you muster the courage to make it in the first place.

Living the life of your dreams doesn’t mean it’s not hard or painful.
It’s all of it—beautiful and ugly, wonderful and terrible, so hard and the easiest thing in the world.
But it’s always the life of my dreams, no question.

You’re in there
Somewhere
Just because it’s not easy to find
Doesn’t mean it isn’t worth the look

We all sustain life—
Our own, someone else, little or big, for one sparkly AHA moment or tiny everythings spread across forever.
When you’re sure it doesn’t matter, you struggle to see your own ripple effect and want to flop into what’s-the-point:
Zoom in. The littlest points of intersection set off invisible chains of events.
Every effort matters—not always for some tangible result but for the mountains of love, character and growth we build not grandly, but in the beautiful vast quiet.

It’s not always perfect, but sometimes it is—
Like some days I wanna say, listen, I’m here and it’s hard. Impossible even.
But most of the time there’s this incredible beauty that’s so pungent and overpowering it feels impossible to miss and ridiculous not to bask in, gratitude that’s ours for the holding as soon as we turn our minds to it.
We have so many days ahead—
Or we don’t.
It’s not always amazing, but sometimes it really, really is.

I always come back to the ways we orbit around each other, bumping up against pieces of ourselves, all mirrors.

The paradoxes have been surfacing again
All the boxes I’ve built for myself longing to be busted
And I wonder where I am in all of it
Holding, releasing, taking on identifiers and shedding them
I am the one watching me decide about me
…
The schedule of family life has crunched me big, squashed me flat and filleted me lately. The familiar feeling of wanting to upend it all, the scratching at the corners that threatens to peel down the walls—I’m only slightly more mature in my handling of it.
The thing I always come back to—the response that doesn’t make me turn on myself—is the making. In creation we get to be new every single time, and even though the strongest pull is to repeat the past, reinvention is always an option.
Did ya hear that? Even if you don’t run away to Europe, even if it’s just art you escape to for a few minutes or hours, reinvention is always an option.

How much possibility I hold in these arms
From the belly that birthed you
Knew you then but has to get reacquainted now
We are both constantly changing
Surging toward the sun
Growth
And maybe my most sacred job is simply to lift your chin
to the light

I can’t help but think the ones doing the greatest work in the world will never be properly recognized—never be called ‘elite performers’ or ‘innovators’ or make the fancy 30 under 30 list.
Because the greatest work in the world is silent, done without fanfare, the tiny blocks of building love in a family and choosing it even when it is freaking hard.
I hope a slice of the legacy I leave is art where I celebrated that impossibly lonely, beautiful work we do in families and illuminated it for just a minute longer, inspired some tired mama or dad to show up with head held a little higher when they didn’t have achievements bursting out their ears because they were “just being a mom” or “just hanging out with the kids.” I mean. Sometimes it’s pretty pictures. I won’t kid myself–

But it’s mostly that your most brilliant, far reaching effort deserves to be seen and celebrated and acknowledged for the amazing, world-changing contribution it is.

i want to be obnoxious and say, go read that again. go HEAR it for real, internalize it, know it, feel it til it rings and radiates out from your gorgeous body in incredible rays!

maybe it’s less obnoxious if i’m talking to myself, cause goodness knows i’m always preaching to a choir of one. we give what we most ache to get.

if you want to get the ones you love most, the ones you work to love and the ones you choose afresh every day in front of the camera for not just documenting but photos that mean something, i’d love to be your lady. contact me here and i’ll send over all the details lightning fast, m’friend.

this family volunteered as tribute at The Hybrid Co in nashville this year to model for a whole gang of photographers. they loved each other through my obnoxious narration of everything i was doing + noticing, played it cool while every photographer took their turn directing them and cooing over their every perfection. (if you want to watch how i run a family shoot and get your own gorgeous images with me holding your hand–maybe literally–then sign up for Hybrid Co 2020 in San Diego! use code SCHULTZ for $50 off at checkout. rad, huh! the hand holding and the discount. there will be group hugs and dancing, guaranteed. proceed with caution.)

so seeing the sams family–i know, i KNOW that family life is not perfect, and that no family has the corner on it, no bunch of us have it all figured out, but the more i see families close up this way the more i wonder if they maybe maybe do? it’s good practice for me, to take all those little slices of perfection packaged in 6×4.5 frames and unpack them into my living room that’s currently littered with tinsel and birthday debris, hold only the incredible parts of everyone for 2 hours and then go home to a full-bodied, ebbing and flowing dynamic i’ll never have pegged. a thousand things have changed for this family and mine since these photos were made, but freezing the slices of their wonder feels like one of the most important contributions i have to give.

ALSO if you live in Utah and you haven’t scheduled your fall family photo session yet, whatcha doin? I’ve got space for you but not for much longer. Contact me here for full family session details + to make your shoot happen. Let’s freeze your perfect parts. (hashtag creepy yet accurate sales pitching?)

I had a professor in college who taught the entire semester on just one idea: the law of the harvest. Our main assignment was to grow a plant from seed. Sun, water, the usual prescription—all to teach this concept:
You gotta sow before you reap, plant long before you’ll be ready to harvest, invest before you see the money grow, do the little things to make the big things.
From the outside looking in—whether it’s on a relationship, a biz, a body of work—it seems like it came easy for THEM. But we don’t see the roots, didn’t see the seed at its tiniest, and aren’t there for the nights worrying, the breakdowns, the little wins that pile up to what we see.
My college seed grew beautifully. I watered it diligently, photographed its progress in its little red mug. Then, after the semester ended, I let it die. just little by little, I got lazy with my watering, and eventually it ended up in the trash when I moved out.

Consistency. It’s not fireworky fabulous. But it’s the fiber of building everything. Feeding and nurturing these little ones in my care has all the glamor most days of watering a plant, but the growth compounds and together we create something more beautiful and sparkly than I could have ever imagined.

P.S. GUESS WHAT it’s fall time! Every september i scream it out because truth is earrrrly fall (read: RIGHT MEOW) is the best kept secret as far as the purrrfect time for family pics. you’ve still got your tan, you’re not rushing to christmas yet, the weather is still beautiful. kinda kidding bc i don’t want any of those reasons to be the real reasons but mostly the bomb i’m tryna drop is : nobody needs fall leaves yo. let’s just get your favorite people, some beautiful light, and all the love and joy you infuse into your most important forever relationships every freaking day. contact me here to book your fall 2019 family session.

P.P.S. you know i have a podcast right?? It’s here to help you live your most wildly creative life and you can listen (whether you’re a photographer or just a human who wants to up their creativity) right here.

adopt me. take me home. you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.

the things i say at sessions sound downright creepy. but i don’t apologize for one millisecond cause oh my goodness. i fell hard for this little family. jess is an amazing photographer herself, and came to the love soaked retreat so when the stars aligned for me to photograph her family while i was in california i was over the moon. and by over the moon, i mean i spent the better part of the day looking for the perfect location. and then we ended up at the back of a parking lot, but gosh i couldn’t care less because this is what resulted.

i was going to resist the urge to go into total cheese-land but i CAN’T not say:

please go after your dreams.

when you run at them hard and fast the most incredible people show up in your life.

it’s not reserved for a “special” select few or outliers. i feel so incredibly lucky to have met such incredible people through chasing something that can seem so trivial, making beautiful images. but the full-sweeping circle thing of it is, in you pursuing whatever big or small thing your heart is tugged by, you get to give and receive with such great depth and height that you won’t believe it could possibly be real.

i think that’s called finding your calling. (cheese-land over, for now. ; ))

HEY well if you want family photos in which you feel and look incredible and we share our hearts and souls (sounds gooey–it is! it’s also insanely fun, pinky swear) i’d love to be your lady. contact me here for all the pricing details and i’ll get you set up with the family session of your dreams, m’love.

i milked my time in nashville and photographed some amazing families while there. we ate swedish fish and played in rosebushes and they were dunked in golden tennessee light and what more could anyone ask for?
…
and some poems.
…

I’d cherish all the details
Whisper sing the outlines to you
Follow the cracks into the river
Of your soul
Please please let me
Look a little longer
Hold you a little stronger
Trace your eyelashes feel them flutter on my cheek
Your perfection amazes me
Dazes me
I made you but didn’t create you
Please please let me
Look a little longer
Hold you a little stronger
Trace your fingertips on my face
Carry your light safe in my heart
…

The constant game of who you are and who others need you to be, the dance of who you used to be and who you want to become—such fascinating flux I want to spend a lifetime pulling the threads and winding where they lead.
…
Holding the tiny tendernesses tight
I want to bake them into every sunrise, burn them on the backs of my eyelids and never forget.
…

and hi hey hello if you would like to have your family photographed by me but you don’t live in Utah you have a coupla options. 1. travel to me for a destination family session. outdoors or in, make some memories with your fave people in a new place and actually ENJOY your trip without tryna wrangle a million kids for a million photos all the freaking time.
2. send me an email cause I just might be coming your way! southern california friends, i come to you at least once (but more like 3x) per year, and i make one trip for destination sessions every year (4 families required to make it happen in any given location) BUT I’m cooking up more travel for the future so tell me where in the world your beautiful fam is so I can come and make some photos of you that you’ll treasure forever.

We’re each a package deal of mess and majesty. We can’t divide the two so we just offer it all to our kids and you know what? It’s exactly the right combo to give. Doesn’t mean we don’t have to try, or improve, or apologize—but that being exactly who we are is the best thing we can be. And hallelujah for that.
…

What if we stopped trying to be wise
Or happy
And just tried being ourselves
(Ironically we’d discover we’re already both and so much more

…
In the potion of emotions: joy, otherness, belonging, loneliness, fear, ambition, tenderness, sacrifice, flow—the mix they make together is what feels like living out love.

I wrote these words with individual photos. They feel like the truest snapshots of my experience lately. And while I sometimes get wadded up about the fact that I’m sharing my mess and majesty together with celebrating yours, in the specific lies the universal. I hope that as I show my face, my heart–the good and the rocky and the breaky and the soaring–that you see yourself in it too, and that it inspires you to go love yourself and your people just a little better.

Hi hey hello it’s me Brooke human on the other side of the screen, the one who is aching to make beautiful images of you + yours because honestly–it feels like one of the biggest gifts i have to give the world, those reminders of how rich in love and beauty your life is. and it helps me love me and mine more. maybe those sound grandiose or extreme–but they’re no less true. contact me right here to book your family session, m’friend.

Family sessions are done in your home and favorite places, but if you’re visiting Utah destination family sessions can be done in studio or outdoors! Let’s make it happen, m’dear.

#brookesclosertoyou part two

In the center of your cheek is a soft squish
I have kissed a hundred times
Without coming up for air
Ribs I have tickled
(Ways you have cracked me too, when I was trying to hold a firm line
And you said something funny)
Feet I have chomped on
Thighs I have yummed up
My body that made and fed yours
The anatomy of us
..

Everybody’s power hungry
Climbing ladders getting ahead
Power suits power plays
But the most powerful I ever felt
Was the delight
of making you laugh

..
We are in motion, running, changing
You are growing
Too fast, they say
And wish to freeze it
But I just want to be it
Right along with you
..
(poems about this work)

the baby girl in this mama’s belly here is now fighting some big battles and my goodness we just never, ever know. the more i see the tough stuff life inevitably throws our way the more i feel called to make my days extraordinary. and ironically, that starts of course with the very small, ordinary things, the tiniest of gestures that mean everything.

hello it’s human brooke, the one behind the screen and behind these photos and the one who is reallly super behind the idea of you getting in photos with the ones you love the most–right now–not in the fall, not next year, because we always think there’s tomorrow but then we get smacked with the reality that nothing is guaranteed, most often when it’s too late. k, that sounded like i’m tryna scare you into booking a photo session. pinky promise i’m not. i just find too many of us putting off real living because we’re waiting for something–money, or time, mostly–but when it comes down to it those reasons seem silly when we talk about the relationships, people, and memories that mean the very most. okay. breath. that was a hardcore sell. i don’t apologize. i want this for you real bad. contact me here if you want to chat about your family photo session.