HI, I’M EMILY.
I’m passionate about creating imagery that inspires and deepens our connection to ourselves, each other and the planet.
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While finishing my B.A. at UNC- Chapel Hill, I pulled some strings (begged) to land myself in one of the last remaining seats of a Photojournalism class with a professor who had retired into academia after years working as a photographer for National Geographic.
I had studied abroad in Southeast Asia the semester before and came home with an insatiable call to keep picking up my camera and to better learn how to tell stories. Every time the word Photojournalism came up in conversation, it felt like blinking lights going off inside my mind. After convincing a few staff in the Communications Department that I really needed to take that course, I was in! Half way through the semester, it was clear I was onto something. My photos from our monthly assignments started to receive recognition and beneath the photos and captions I’d submitted, my professor started scribbling three words: “National Geographic Rockstar!” I was both horrified and excited. A little bit of encouragement was all it took.
When I graduated from UNC-CH in 2011, I landed two jobs as a Photojournalist, relocated to Asheville, NC and picked up two more tools that would become incredibly life-enhancing and impossible to put down: yoga & meditation. I started practicing every day and worked part-time jobs for five years to help supplement my photography pay. In 2017, I became a full-time photographer.
Since that leap, creating images has taken me from the Blue Ridge Mountains to small communities in North Bali, Java, China and Cambodia. My work has been featured in MANTRA MAG, Yoga Journal, Mind Body Green, Carolina Passport, WNC Magazine and an array of smaller regional publications.
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Past clients include Tibetan Spirit Travels, Drikung Kagyu Foundation, Young Cultural Leaders with Spiritual Insight, Bali Pure, Light A Path, Viet Nalanda Foundation, Asheville Yoga Festival, Red Moon Herbs, Liquido Active, Sunvet Animal Wellness and Asheville School of Massage & Yoga.
In photographing people, I look for that moment when their essential nature shines through —unguarded. It’s as if the whole face lights up with an expression that is uniquely and truly their own.
“When you dress in the clothes of a salesman, people will call you salesman. And when you dress in the clothes of a cook people will call you cook, but you are not these changes outside.” - Kadek Vasek
(pictured)