Hi! I'm Jenna!



Ah - THIS  question - "who am I?!" To answer, I always come back with something along the lines of "I'm still learning" - of course in an awkwardly, joking kind of way, because by age 42, I still haven't come up with a more comprehensive and specific answer...  it's a constant work in progress ;).

BUT, what I do know about myself, confidently, are these two things:

1) I am a mom to three daughters, also my practice models - Mila age 12.5, Avila age 10, and Giovanna age 5. You'll see them around here and on my Instagram. They are my biggest fans ("Mom, WHY aren't you a photographer yet?! You should JUST DO IT!" And whenever they see another photographer - "Mom, that will be you someday.") who let me practice my photography with them, usually at the beach, during a sunset runaround (our happy place). As the girls are growing up, our need to be THEIR biggest fans becomes more evident. Not sure if you can relate, but, girls are hard on themselves!! Daily, we are reminding them to be proud, confident, to take "smart risks," to be comfortable being uncomfortable, to appreciate the learning process, and to feel brave in uncertainty, because it's the trying that matters, not the end result. And then I look myself in the mirror..... you know how the story goes. So, here I am - after 7 years in college getting a BS and MS in Nutrition, and after working in tech for 13 years, and then after taking two years since leaving my full time corporate job to regroup and be more present (the real quality kind - I had a lot of making up to do) with my family - I'm ready to apply our daily parenting mantras to myself, and to my lifelong passion for capturing life in the moment through photos. I am grateful for my journey thus far, and that it has led me to here, and now.

2) I have A L W A Y S been a photographer. Now I am a photographer with a business license (in process). The one thing I have always known to be true about myself, from long before I knew myself as a wife and a mom - is that I have this need to CREATE (in parallel to being a real life soccer mom, of course). I have always documented my life - time with friends, family gatherings, travel, dogs, kids, any sunset - you name it - with a camera. I'm not joking about the disposables. I can still so vividly HEAR that "crank" sound to wind the camera up, and I can visualize that teeny tiny viewfinder window that, relatively speaking, got the job done and captured some otherwise would-be-lost glances that I am so thankful are now saved. The photos are poor quality, and many have someone's finger covering half of the printed photo (lol), but for a long time, that's what we had available to use! Sometimes it's just the thought of wanting to save the "we were here" memories, even if the picture isn't a "framer" ;). Growing up, whenever my family would get a new "family" (air quotes used here) digital camera - which was a big deal! - I always ended up hoarding it. In high school and college, I always had a camera with me, and a workflow for uploading, organizing, printing, and sharing pictures (no editing because this was even before Lightroom... can you imagine!). This was also before the iPhone, so the concept of having a camera on your person at all times wasn't an assumption, like it is now.  I sort of want our girls to grow up knowing this... having a pocket digital camera on them, without the phone! That thought makes me happy. What makes this even more fulfilling to me, is that I get to give... to you. Creating is only half of it. It's the feeling of getting to GIVE you your stories, frozen in fractions of a second, that keeps me whole.

Fast forward to present day technology and equipment, and to me being brave enough to say "Let's do this, for real," - let's take those framer's, and also the ones that will never see a frame (arguably sometimes the best of the gallery).