What We’ve Been Photographing Lately | Summer Stories, Celebrations + Business

This month took us all over the place in the best way. Here are just a few of the photography and videography services Sage and Soul Photography provided this month. (Not even including the Salmon Bake, 10 yr H.S. Reunion, Journeymen young men's outdoor experience, and bridal/boudoir session!)

We ALSO photographed a 90s birthday party in Seattle, a full senior session at Point Defiance, an adult summer camp tucked into the woods, a full-day commercial branding shoot across multiple cities, and a mother + daughter session at Owen Beach that reminded me exactly why I picked up a camera in the first place.

That variety is one of my favorite parts of what we do at Sage + Soul Photography. One day we’re photographing a room full of people in throwback jerseys, and the next we’re documenting a business handing new homeowners their keys or a mom holding onto a season of childhood she knows is moving fast.

Here are a few of the stories we had the chance to photograph lately.

Senior Season at Point Defiance Park | Congratulations, Bella!

We got to celebrate Bella this month with her senior session at Point Defiance Park, and she chose one of my favorite ways to do it—the full three-hour experience.

Point Defiance gives us so much variety without having to leave one area. We started around the park using the pond, bridge, rose garden and pagoda, then worked our way down to Owen Beach to finish the session at sunset.

Bella brought four different outfits, which gave the gallery a completely different feel from one location to the next. We went from casual and relaxed to dressier looks, then finished with cap-and-gown photos and that soft evening light near the water.

That’s one of the things I love about a longer senior session. There’s time to move around, change outfits, try different backgrounds and let the photos feel like more than one version of you.

For seniors who want something simpler, we also offer one-hour mini senior sessions with easy accessory or layer changes instead of full outfit changes.

Congratulations, Bella! Such a fun way to mark the end of one chapter and the start of whatever comes next.

A Very 90s Birthday Party at Keeps Home, Inc.

One of our favorite assignments this month was photographing a 90s-themed birthday party for Peerspace at Keeps Home, Inc., one of their newer Seattle event spaces.

And people absolutely understood the assignment.

There were oversized basketball and football jerseys, bandanas, backwards caps, overalls, chunky sneakers, tiny sunglasses and enough throwback sports gear to make the whole room feel like a very good 1997 house party.

Keeps Home, Inc. is an industrial-style space in Seattle’s SODO neighborhood, with white brick walls, concrete floors, high ceilings and huge paper lanterns overhead. It gave the party plenty of room without competing with everything happening inside it. By the time the room filled up, the simple space had become a backdrop for a whole lot of personality.

What stood out most in the photos was how much everyone leaned into it. This wasn’t a party where three people dressed for the theme and everyone else ignored the memo. Nearly the entire crowd showed up ready for the 90s.

There were big group photos, drinks raised across the room, people squeezing together for pictures and plenty of moments that felt less like posing and more like documenting a really good night with friends.

That’s probably my favorite part of photographing events like this. Years from now, the photos won’t just show what everyone wore. They’ll bring back who was there, who was laughing together, and what it felt like when the whole room was having a good time.

Also, apparently we have reached the point where the 90s qualify as a nostalgic era. I’m choosing not to think too hard about that.

A Full-Day Brand Shoot with Skyline Properties

One of our bigger commercial shoots this month was a full day with Skyline Properties, photographing at four locations between Orting, Puyallup and Bothell. The goal was to create a library of real, usable images that shows what their brokers actually do—meeting with clients, touring homes, reviewing paperwork, sitting down for conversations, handing over keys and guiding people through the different stages of buying or selling a home.

Skyline is a company with a much bigger footprint than many people realize. Founded in 1988, it has grown into Washington’s largest independent, non-franchised real estate company, with nearly 1,200 brokers working from five Puget Sound offices in Puyallup, Bothell, Seattle, Bellevue and Kent. Their brokers work across residential real estate, condos, commercial property, multifamily, land and new construction, and collectively participate in more than one out of every ten home sales across the 19 counties served by the Northwest MLS.

Their reach is impressive, but what I liked photographing was the personal side of the company. Skyline’s model is built around local brokers rather than a giant national franchise, and each of its five offices has managing brokers on site. The company also has brokers who speak more than 45 languages, which says a lot about the range of communities they serve throughout the Puget Sound.

For this shoot, we wanted the photos to feel more like real life than stock photography. We photographed conversations at the Skyline office, clients sitting down to review documents, agents walking buyers through homes, and that very good moment at the end when someone finally gets the keys. Shooting in several locations gave us completely different environments while keeping the story consistent from image to image.

The Puyallup branch serves buyers, sellers and investors throughout Pierce County, including Puyallup, South Hill, Sumner, Bonney Lake, Orting, Graham and Tacoma, while the Bothell office covers much of the Northshore area, including Bothell, Woodinville, Kenmore, Mill Creek and Kirkland.

A strong branding library needs more than a few headshots. It needs to show what working with a company actually looks like. After a full day following the Skyline team through offices and homes, we came away with exactly that—a collection that shows both the scale of the company and the people behind it.

Before This Season Changes | A Mother + Daughter Session at Owen Beach

This session at Owen Beach is such a good example of why I chose photography in the first place.

There is such a short stretch of time when your child is still little enough to curl up in your lap, reach for your hand without thinking about it, laugh with their whole body, and still want to be close to you in that completely uncomplicated way. Then somehow the preteen years arrive, life gets busier, independence grows, and the relationship begins to change.

Not in a bad way—just in the way childhood always does.

For this mother and daughter session, we spent the evening at Owen Beach in Point Defiance, letting them walk, laugh, snuggle on the driftwood and eventually head straight into the water together as the sun went down. They wore coordinating black dresses, which kept the photographs simple and let their connection be what you notice first.

My favorite images aren’t necessarily the ones where they’re both looking at the camera. It’s the snuggling, the gazes, it’s the two of them holding hands in the water. Those are the photographs that will probably mean even more ten or twenty years from now.

That’s really the heart behind Sage + Soul Photography for me. Photographs give us a way to hold onto a season that we already know won’t last. Kids grow. Relationships change. The way they fit against you changes. Their voices, faces, interests and independence all change.

But for one evening, we can stop it.

Not perfectly. Not forever.

Just long enough to make something they’ll both be able to come back to someday and remember exactly what it felt like to belong to each other in this particular season.

Play to Heal | An Adult Summer Camp in the Woods

Another very different kind of event we photographed this month was Play to Heal, an adult summer camp held on the Peninsula.

The setting alone made it feel like an escape. Tables were tucked beneath the trees, surrounded by ferns and moss, with colorful flowers, candles, patterned linens and little handmade details scattered throughout the forest. String lights and tiki torches came on as the day faded, and even the cold-plunge tubs looked SO inviting sitting among the ferns.

The weekend was built around something adults don’t always make enough room for: play.

There was art projects, games, dancing, yoga, somatic breathwork, cold immersion, sound healing, shared meals and time around the campfire. But there was also space to do less—to sit in a hammock, wander through the woods, journal, sleep in or simply be quiet for a while.

What I liked about the idea was that nobody had to experience the weekend in exactly the same way. Some people came ready to move and participate in everything. Others were there to slow down. Both belonged.

The details throughout the property made the whole thing feel a little unexpected and almost storybook-like: ceramic cups gathered together by candlelight, wildflowers on long tables, tiny bird nests tucked into moss, fires glowing along the pathways, and even a chalkboard asking, “When is the last time you remember being fully immersed in play?”

That question probably says it best.

Play to Heal wasn’t really about escaping adulthood. It was about remembering that curiosity, movement, rest, creativity and play still belong in it.

If something in this month’s recap made you think, I’ve been meaning to do that, consider this your reminder.

Maybe it’s finally updating your business photos. Maybe your senior needs portraits before graduation sneaks up. Maybe your family hasn’t been photographed together in years. Or maybe you have an event coming up that deserves more than a few phone photos.

Whatever season you’re in, I’d love to help you document it.

Reply to this email, send me a message, or visit Sage + Soul Photography to start planning your session or event coverage.