Anne Arundel County, Maryland

The most rewarding part of photography is getting to serve family and friends, old and new, by documenting the special moments and seasons of their lives. Documenting and preserving where they are, here and now, in this unique time. Photographing my best friend Nicole and her pup Brady is one of those moments I’m so happy to have captured.

Nicole and I became best friends our freshman year of high school. We were both students in the environmental science program at our school and went on every bi-weekly field trip together throughout our four years (one perk of being near the end of the alphabet- our maiden names Stottlemyer and Stubbs). I’ll never forget the countless bus rides we sat next to each other, talking a mile a minute, until we arrived at our adventure of the day. Whether it was hiking through the snow, kayaking, ice skating, fishing, camping, or chopping down invasive vine species with machetes (not kidding, our school was awesome), we stuck together and our conversations never missed a beat.

Since then, we went on to different colleges and have, at times, lived far from each other (for a while on opposite coasts), but now she’s back in Maryland (yay!). When we were talking about photo session ideas, I knew Brady, her four-legged baby, had to be part of it. Being a “dog mom” hasn’t always been easy since she rescued him, but he is truly part of her family so I was very happy to capture them together (plus a few solo portraits of my beautiful friend). As you can tell from the images, Brady has a ton of energy so this was a special challenge, but so much fun. I hope you enjoy them!