You might remember a couple of weeks ago, the proud parents of this little gem when we did their maternity session around Redmond. Welcome into the equation their own little slice of heaven, Knox. Ryan and Liz are already in the full swing of parenting and doing an awesome job. It kinda helps that this is the easiest baby, already sleeping on a schedule, and simply happy just to be held and fed. Not a big crier, and not a big fusser. We did his newborn photos on the 8th day of his life and he was already back up to birth weight! He’s going to be a little tank. So adorable.

My fave…. melts my heart right into a puddle.

Get in touch or View more work.

It’s been an awesome birthday week around her at casa-de-bobanks. (yes we celebrate for a week) Minus the sinus infection, turning 26 has been a relatively painless experience. Billy gave me the first season of Glee, which I have been watching over and over for the last week while I’ve been sick. My brilliant parents gifted me a memory foam pillow topper AND a new flip video camera which I fully intend to use to inundate you with VLOGing. Watch out.

Reasons number 533 and 534 why Anthropologie is a detail oriented girls best friend.

This little diddy showed up in the mail yesterday from my BFF in California, Ari. She knows I love Anthropologie about as much as I love my own mother ( i kid mom, i kid). I opened the box and HOLY COW, check out their attention to detail. Their packaging is so thoughtful, and look! they even hand wrote her note to me. I. AM. IN. LOVE.

Another surprise from Anthropologie this month was a coupon that came in the mail like this:

Wishing yours truly a happy birthday ;-) So clever, and detail oriented. They really take the time to put craftsmanship first for their customers. This card also doubles as a necklace! CUTE!

I bet you’re dying to know what was wrapped up in that pretty little box? A brand new gorgeous pair of freelance pants, which I happen to be sporting at this moment. I love Ari, she just gets me!

Hope you had an awesome week too.

xoxo,

Laura

I had 3 main goals for WPPI this year, and I really pushed to achieve them. Between naps.

1. GIVE something.

2. BUY something.

3. LEARN something.

Parts one and two were accomplished in the first two days, PHotoshoot, check!, new boxes (for a top secret project) at the trade show, check! Parts 3 and 4 were the ones I needed to focus on. Because I shifted my priorities this year from trying to do EVERYTHING to trying to do 4 things, I actually had a really wonderful week. I had lots of coffee dates with new friends, looooooooong dinners, shot a maternity session for two very good friends, and even had a mentor session with a photographer I love.

I met with Emilie Sommer of Emilie Inc. on Wednesday. She is a Maine based photographer, who’s work I’ve been following for years. I tried to win this mentor session on Ebay through the Thirst Relief auction. I stink at Ebay. I really do. I must not click enough, my strategy is always off. This time, I lost by 2 dollars in the last minute. I was devastated so I tweeted about it, not expecting a response at all. She tweeted back and asked me if I wanted to meet up for coffee anyway! Simply THE BEST. We talked about business, goals, life, and success. One thing I learned? I have a ton of work to do. We talked mostly about my web presence.

Emilie took a look at my website and confirmed what I secretly knew to be true but wasn’t ready to deal with. IT was HORRIBLE. Hard to navigate, limiting and not at all a representation of my brand. We talked strategy and exactly what direction to go! I can’t thank her enough for meeting with me. I know WPPI is a very busy time for most and I just think the world of her. I walked away from our meeting like I was floating on a cloud. I have a great new friend and I learned so much!

So here is the BIG news! BIGGEST news of the year! It’s a brand spanking NEW website!!!! I’m so excited about the launch, and because it is new there are still a few bugs to be worked out, but please take a look and let me know what you think. I used a revolutionary software called SHOWIT to make this site. It’s more than words. It’s my new best friend. I’m so in love with it.

Thank you for taking a look, I can’t wait to hear what you think!

www.lauramarchbanksweddings.com

Last week the office was unavoidably closed due to the annual WPPI conference in Las Vegas. This was my second time to WPPI and quite honestly I am still absorbing most of the information I took home with me last year. I kinda over did it last year. Between the 8am classes, the gigantic tradeshow, and the out-all-night-til-dawn industry parties, I came home desperately needing a vacation from my vacation. This year my priorities were quite shifted.

Sunday morning I arrived and took a cab straight to the Las Vegas Country Club for the photoshoot I produced for Portrait House Fundraising. I talked a little on the blog about what an amazing thing my friends Justin and Mary Marantz are doing with their goals for Portrait House shortly after I met with them while they were in Seattle. Portrait House is a charitable outlet for photographers to give back. They have an ongoing project list, and first up is Habitat for Humanity.

It’s just so hard to put into words how amazing it felt to address all of the participants at the shoot and realize that all of this hard work for the past 3 months was finally coming to a head. The monumental feeling that everyone there felt the same way I did about the cause. Mary spoke about their reasoning, about the larger purpose, and yes I’ve heard it before…. but this time I heard it. I heard it loud and clear coming from the crowd of eager faces staring up at me. They all got it, they understood what I understood. What we were doing here today was much more about getting the shot. We all felt pretty great about that too, trust me. I went back to my hotel room that night and had a big cry-fest by myself. This was the single-most-hugest-most-best-feeling thing I have ever done. EVER. SO much work, but so much payoff.

I also want to give a HUGE giant shout out to all of our amazing sponsors and talent. Without them, this would not have been possible:

Las Vegas Country Club, Thomas Meyer Designs, Couture Bride,  Tux One, Megan Mulligan Makeup, Bella Vita Design, Sami and Joey, Amanda and Mike, Megan and Mike, Jenn and Tim, Chantal and Jared.

I didn’t get a ton of shooting done because I was running around like a crazy person (more than usual). But I thought I would share with you some of my favorite images from that day.

It’s been a whirlwind of a week because I’ve been out of town for my annual trip to WPPI. It’s been a long 5 days of shooting and learning and tradeshow walking, I can’t wait to share with you how CHARGED up and inspired I am about photography in this moment. But until my brain has a chance to process, I’m taking advantage of the free wifi in the Las Vegas airport on my way out of town to share with you a session I did with Matt and Breanne in Las Vegas! Matt and Breanne are long time friends of ours and we couldn’t be more excited for them to start their family! They’re having a boy!!! I’m so honored that they drove all the way from Ventura for this session. We braved the frigid cold and played in the desert. Breanne is a very talented portrait photographer herself, so I was a bit intimidated walking into this. Best thing about shooting Breanne and Matt = they laugh so easily! And they already know my dumb jokes, still…. they laugh.

Love you guys!

View more work or Get in touch!