About Julie

A few random things about me:

My knees do not get along very well with Legos left on the floor.


I don’t play piano, but my first job included teaching piano lessons.

Mike and I were married 20 years ago at a courthouse on a Thursday morning. I worked at The State newspaper in Columbia, SC, and went to work in my wedding dress, escorted by my new husband. The one person I’d told about the elopement arranged a surprise reception in the newsroom complete with a wedding cake, champagne and gifts. (Journalists will do anything for champagne at 10 a.m.)

I got to call the press foreman and yell, “Stop the presses!” when I caught an icky mistake on the front page of The New York Times once several years ago. I don’t remember what the mistake was though, something about a Supreme Court Justice.

I grew up with three older brothers. As a child, I despised dresses. I loved hand-me-down jeans. Some things never change.

My mother sent me to finishing school when I was in 9th grade to “kick the tomboy out.” Among other things, I think I was supposed to learn to sip tea delicately, to sit properly with overlapped feet, which fork to use for the salad, and how to take a gentleman’s arm. I was not always successful at these things. However, the one thing of true value I learned helps me show bridesmaids how to stand for formal photographs. Turn slightly from camera position. Weight on back hip. Heels together with front toe pointed at camera, other toe pointed at a 45-degree angle. Do something interesting with your hands. Arms look dead when they’re just hanging there.

I obsessively write things down that people say.

When I was a child, I did voiceovers for radio commercials. People would call the station asking to hear the “giggly little girl” commercials over and over again. My dad was the DJ; he could make me giggle with just a glance.

I ruined a very-unDisney production of Beauty and the Beast (think: dark drama) when the orchestra’s French horn player glanced at me just before my clarinet solo. I began to giggle. I did not stop giggling for 15 minutes. They had to stop the show. Thus ended my career as a professional clarinetist. (That said, I love the instrument and am always looking for excuses to practice, so if you have something you want me to play, give me a couple of months to work on it, and I’m your girl! No giggling — I promise!)

The only time I feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be and doing what I’m supposed to be doing is whenever I’m with the parasites my boys.

Mike is (usually) a great husband and father. A veteran of the U.S. military, he always looked GOOD in a uniform! As a dad and husband, he buys groceries, yells at health insurance goobs, takes care of my car, blasts me for not eating right (then buys me cookies), hugs me tight when I’m cold, which is like all the time, calls me a moron when I leave my cell phone in New York, mows the lawn, teaches the G-rex how to play basketball, (year after year) and is one of Brad’s best friends. (The fact that my teenage son is so close to his father makes me sparkle.) Mike also does all the ironing! He would have been a fine doctor too. I’m lucky he married me. If he reads this far into this thing, he’ll respond, “Got one thing right.”

Because I am so moved by the sacrifices people have made and continue to make for my freedom, I am devoted to the cause of insuring that Memorial Day should be about remembering the sacrifices and not about mattress sales.

I am still close to Susan, my first best friend. We met when we were 3 by the banks of Hitchcock Woods in Aiken, SC.

Speaking of woods, it’s fairly safe to say that I rather like trees.

I have written poems that came from a spiritual place beyond my normal existence. I call this trance verse. One haunting example is Jacob’s Tombstone which consumed me for three days straight.

I am a zen driver. Go ahead and pull out in front of me. I will wave happily and go with the flow in the river of traffic. I am water. I will find my way in time, carried by the current.

I have deep philosophies and profound reasons about why I specialize in documenting family lifestyles in a fun, unportrait, beautiful, real, emotional kind of way. Ask me about it. It has to do with being a fourth child, super 8 film, and one terrible, life-changing car crash.

Despite warnings of total starvation, my no-seafood-for-me diet was not a problem when I went to Japan for a series of family lifestyle photo shoots, which, by the way, was an AWESOME trip! Did you know that Tokyo has some of the best bakeries in the world? (Happy dance!)

“When you find yourself beginning to feel a bond between yourself and the people you photograph, when you laugh and cry with their laughter and tears, you will know you are on the right track.”
–Arthur Fellig