I'm the owner and artist behind Finch and Laurel. I was born in Minnesota and briefly lived in Rhode Island as a child, but I've been living in Jacksonville, Florida for the last 20+ years.

I have been photographing families since 2015. However, when my father passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in 2017, things changed.  While mourning his passing, I pulled out the old bins of 4x6 photos and VHS home videos at my mother's house, and looked at every single one.

In doing so, I realized that the photos of my father that I found the most special and meaningful weren't the perfectly-posed photos of us together. Instead, they were the photos that really showed my father's personality and the mundane routines we did together that meant the most to me-- things like taking the dogs for a walk or feeding the seagulls at the beach. They let me step back in the memory. I found that the home videos gave me that extra layer of connection with my dad that I missed-- hearing his voice and his laugh again, and seeing his mannerisms in motion.

I also noticed another big issue: my mother was hardly in those photos or videos at all, because she was the one behind the camera.
 

I decided to close down my first photography business and start fresh, under a new name that would be a monument to two things that will always remind me of my father, a Pennsylvania native: goldfinches and mountain laurel. I decided that in this business, I wanted to give you, my client families, the same gift that my mother gave to me: photos and videos that will feel like a warm hug to your kid(s) when you're not around, that will show how hard you work and how much you love them, and that will really paint a picture for them of what their younger years looked like and the environment they grew up in. But improving upon what the gift my mother gave to me, these photos and videos will have you in them, too.