Cynda & Mike | Sunrise Beloved Session in Sabino Canyon

In June this year, Cody and I moved to Tucson, Arizona on his journey to become a general surgeon at the U of A. While it was a tough move for both of us, being that this is the first time on our own and away from family, we feel extremely blessed to have been placed in such a beautiful part of the country. My dad and step-mom, Cynda, helped us drive down to Arizona and stayed a few weeks to visit and discover our new hometown. The morning before they flew back to Kansas City, I had the privilege of being able to photograph them as a couple, for the first time just as if they were my regular clients. And this was no easy task lol… we woke up around 4 a.m. to find a prime spot and beat the heat (with most days averaging 115° that week) in Sabino Canyon before the sun was even up and THEN my dad smashed his hand into a cactus because he was goofing around, LOL, took about 10 minutes to pull all the little thorns out! The week before this photo session, I went to a Beloved Collective photography workshop by Jesh de Rox, where I not only met some awesome photographers from Tucson and Phoenix, but I learned very useful techniques and a different approach to photography that I will be incorporating into all of my photo shoots. Beloved is a hands-on, have fun, feel good, photographic adventure. It celebrates and explores… showing love, feeling love, and being loved. After I experimented using this approach with my dad and Cynda, it brought a whole new meaning to my photography and what authentic expressions I am able to retrieve from my couples when I provide a comfortable and inviting environment for them. Thank you both for allowing me to capture your personalities and I miss you both very much! Come visit soon 🙂

One of my favorite images from the session!! I just love the youthful joy you see in both of their faces.

I love acting silly and getting kisses from my daddy! <3

“Tina put my wife and myself so at ease during our photo shoot. It made the two of us feel so close and intimate with each other that pictures were captured I would have otherwise thought difficult or impossible, and all with minimal cueing or direction.”  – Mike

“Tina graced myself and her father with a photo shoot at dawn in Tucson, Arizona. The sun had just started to illuminate the mountains. Even though I was tired at the early hour, it was worth it, as she professionally spoke words of motivation to pose us together, reflecting the emotions we were experiencing about the other. She utilized her own personality so she guided us with humor, exacerbating the joy we felt during this experience. Her inner beauty was evident in her words, her moves, and her directions, until we, ourselves, were encouraged in our actual feelings of love, and at times, even forgetting her presence, in lieu of or self-exploration of our love and happiness.” – Cynda