Hello & nice to meet you! I’m Shelby.

i grew up in seattle in the 90’s, in an old blue house on queen anne hill. my family ran a glassblowing studio in pioneer square and my dad lived his art: he was constantly creating and building and making. he also took a lot of photographs on old film cameras, developing them in the darkroom we had in our basement. my dad taught me aperture and exposure on an old nikon, then showed me how to use developer, fixer and stop bath to give life to the photos and i became obsessed with the process of it all, how the photos appeared on the paper like magic.

i fell in love with taking photos and documenting life and have been telling visual stories every since. though i have also dipped my toes in the areas of anthropology, social work, and public health, photographing people has been my passion and work for over 15 years.

i am a storyteller, an observer, a documenter, an artist and a mama to two children who are now bigger/funnier than me; i speak spanish and can parallel park even under traffic pressure & my kids say i overuse the crockpot but that i make up for it with my matcha making skills. i’m a lover of hard cover books and train rides; a fan of paris and new york and wide, open spaces along the oregon coast. i love a walk through forest park and socks that don’t match and extra spicy street tacos i dream about owning a tiny bookshop, learning how to read palms and roadtripping through south america.

i love shooting in the PNW but i’m always up for an adventure to somewhere i’ve never been; i have travelled all over the globe with my camera in tow and although morocco and iceland and japan were all incredible, i will always find my way back to mexico—it might just be my favorite place…

when i’m not shooting big, joyous wedding celebrations or quiet newborn sessions, i can be found counting blossoms around my NE portland neighborhood, holding hot cups of black tea, having prince dance parties in my kitchen and trying to keep my houseplants alive (it’s not going great, btw);

one last thing: i believe that beauty lies in imperfection, that staying curious is the key to life and that brene brown was NOT wrong when she said: “STAY AWKWARD, BRAVE AND KIND”.

p.s.: i would love to tell your story.