I’m Brigit!
Professional people wrangler, anthropologist, lover of languages, and former expat. I’ve been chasing adventure since the day I was born (think: “Rambling Man” by the Allman Brothers) and love sharing those adventures with others.
Whether it’s a family session or wedding, I love the beautiful chaos of life. Very little can faze me — I grew up in a giant Irish family, have two feral mountain kids, and am the friend everyone calls in a crisis.
If you love stories like I do, want someone who’ll help you romanticize your life, never want to feel awkward on camera (I get it!), and have a heart for adventure, I’d love to work with you. I’ve documented my life moving and traveling the globe — now let me document yours.
Ever since I could remember, I’ve always loved stories
telling your unique story, capturing your most authentic emotions
Pictures tell the most unique stories
The thing I love most about being a photographer is getting to know people and tell their stories. You may hear lots of photographers say that and it’s probably very true for all of us, but no one can tell your story like an anthropologist. Anthropology is all about digging deeper. It’s about knowing when to observe and when to step back and let a moment happen. It’s about seeing to the heart and seeing what’s most precious and important, no matter how small it may seem.
Photography is a lot like anthropology. It’s knowing when to let the candid moment happen or when to hop in with some gentle prompting. Anyone can click a shutter or ask someone to smile. It takes a master storyteller to really see to the heart of a moment and how to capture it. I truly adore getting to know everything about you so we can tell your story the way you want it told.
Photos are a kind of time travel
Photos are amazing. When a moment is gone, it’s gone. Once it’s forgotten, that’s it. But not with photos. They have a kind of magic almost nothing else has. Photography let us freeze time and time travel, transporting us back to that exact moment with all the emotions around it.
Believe me: there’s nothing more precious than our memories. And there’s nothing more amazing than photography. I moved all over the US just about every three years, and photos were often all I had to remind me of a place. Things I would have easily forgotten, I can remember. Whether it’s the giant scavenger hunt my mom organized for my 10th birthday in New Hampshire; the little cottage where my family stayed in Ireland; my husband laughing at me as my heels sank in the grass at our wedding; or our kids’ first steps — all those things I can remember through photos.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learned after getting married, traveling the world, and having kids, it’s this:
take the photos
Find a photographer whose work you love who can tell your story. Pay for the photos. Print them. Hang them up. I can tell you: I highkey regret not paying for more of my wedding photos. And I fully admit to having yearly family sessions fall by the wayside during my own busy season. But it’s always worth it. So take the photos. Treasure them, not only for you but for everyone who loves you now and will love you in the future.
What You Get With Me
Easy, Gentle Prompting
Gorgeous Locales
Expert People Wrangling
A No-Stress Time
Portrait of the Artist
I’ve always been a photographer
And while it wasn’t always my day job, it’s always the job I wanted. Documenting my own life around the globe, I never realized how much of my life was related to photography. Rather than telling you how much I love mac & cheese or coffee, let’s look at some of the many jobs I’ve had and how that makes me the perfect person to tell your story.
Anthropologist & Tour Guide
When I was in grad school, I traveled to North Korea. Well, I was going to do language study in North Korea for two months but ended up just doing a short tour instead after a summer in Seoul.
That trip led me to studying tourism in Soviet and Soviet-adjacent places, eventually becoming a tour guide to those places. Why? Because I loved the spaces in-between — the cracks where control breaks down and connection happens. Which I only discovered after one of those moments with the gift shop auntie at the hotel who I spoke with for what felt like hours who helped me the next day when I had food poisoning.
Experiencing that moment and then thinking about how we tell those stories inspired me to understand why people travel there in the first place and how we tell stories about our lives and what we experience.
More than that, I also learned the value of photography for telling stories. How did I frame those photos I took? What did those photos tell the people back home? How did I talk about them? How we take photos is just like how we tell those stories: not only does it tell people what was there, but it shows how we saw it.
Japanese Preschool Teacher
Teaching preschool was probably the most rewarding and challenging job I’ve ever had. And if you’ve taught preschool or had a preschooler, you know exactly what I mean. Now imagine doing it in your third language. That was me during my stint as a Japanese preschool teacher in Seattle.
Mr. Rogers said play is the work of the child and if there’s one thing kids will always find a way to do, it’s play. Teaching preschool taught me to embrace the chaos, to refine my cat herding skills (already pretty good from having worked in an animal shelter during college), and to revel in the tiniest moments. Like when we had just a couple minutes left and I’d run out of lessons so we all sat and I had the kids help me draw Anpanman. I still have that drawing to this day. Visual reminders of things are some of the most precious things we have.
Japanese to English Translator
I’ve always loved puzzles. And lots of things can be puzzles: math problems are puzzles. Stories can be put together like a puzzle. Translation is a puzzle. How do I convey the meaning in these words to an audience who may have no frame of reference for this concept, but in a clear and concise way?
Photography is a lot like a puzzle, too, and is its own form of translation. How do I translate what I see to what I capture? How do I capture the emotion of this moment on film so you feel it exactly as you did in that moment?
Something truly amazing happens when you put those pieces together. And those are the spaces in which I thrive.
Me But Make It Music
I always love getting to know people through their musical tastes! It’s such a universal language and fun way to connect with others. This playlist is what I would use to introduce myself to someone with only 20 songs. These songs are so special to me and always take me back to different times in my life: from riding my bike all over Laramie, Wyoming as a kid; driving winding mountain highways in Washington; or landing for the first time in my new home abroad in Asia. Music is a lot like photography — it can instantly transport you back to certain times and that’s why both are just so precious to me. (If you love any of these songs, too, I’d love it if you told me!)
Get in Touch
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