Think back to your best ever vacation. Where did you go? The beach? The mountains? On a cruise? Out of the country?

Now ask yourself: what made it so great? Was it the food? Or maybe, was it the weather? How about the activities you did while you were there? Or was it – most likely – the people you took along with you on the trip?

If I answered this question – what is the best ever vacation? – my answer would come from a combination of all those reasons I mentioned above. It’s not just one thing – the food, or the location, or even the people. The best ever vacation comes from all those elements coming together to create MEMORIES and FEELINGS. Because after the vacation is over – weeks, months, or years later – the details of the vacation will fade but the memories and feelings will stay with me.

When families are together, they want to build memories and they want those memories to LAST. Every time they think about their trip to Green Lake, Wisconsin they want to have a great moment to remember or a funny story to share. 

I am a Green Lake photographer and I work with clients to create family portraits that preserve the memories of their family vacation. I have been a family photographer for over a decade, working with families of all sizes. I understand that when a family is able to gather everyone together in one place at one time – it’s RARE and it is to be CELEBRATED. I also come from a large family, and when my family is all together – which only happens about once every 5 years – we take a family portrait to mark the moment in time. It’s a bookmark of our lives at this moment, and with these people. 

Summer vacation in Green Lake, Wisconsin is a time to get away from all the day-to-day stress and chaos, to sit down and listen to the water lapping on the shore while you put your feet up and watch the sun setting. Once you have a chance to take a deep breath….. and EXHALE… you will feel the weight drop off your shoulders. Clarity. Peace. Patience. It’s also a chance to enjoy reconnecting with your favorite people in the world – friends, family, or some of both. If the pandemic has taught us only one thing (well, it’s definitely more than that, but if we had to pick just one thing….) it is that we can’t take for granted the time we get to spend together with the people we love. In just a blink, we can be cut off from seeing them, and connecting through video chat or from 6 feet apart just isn’t good enough. We want hugs. We want to hold hands. We want to sit at the same table and break bread together. We want to laugh together and cry together and look each other in the eye. We want to savor every day together.