Life Abundant

Our first Montana winter has been full of firsts.  Our first time experiencing negative temperatures. We’ve had multiple weeks in a row of temps ranging from 12 as a daily high, to – 15 at night as our low. Our first winter with a constant covering of snow on the ground. On most days we wake up to another inch or two of snow dusting our car and covering the ground making everything clean and feel like the perfect winter wonderland.  Since we love photography and love snow, we decided to take a Saturday to explore some of the beautiful wilderness that our little corner of Montana has to offer.

One of our good friends (who also happens to be a videographer and photographer) Banks Nash, came along with us for the day. It was so nice to have someone else with us who just loves being exploring and loved being creative with whatever we stumbled upon. Oh and did I mentioned he’s from Alabama, so this is literally his first winter experiencing so much snow!

We drove for miles, mostly along the Swan Mountain range (a section of the Rocky Mountains) that is within a 25-minute drive from our house, and that you can see out of our kitchen window.  We stumbled upon the cutest little barn, painted light blue and yellow, standing out so perfectly in the 1 – 2 feet of snow we had on the ground. The barn was a perfect backdrop for a bit of a photoshoot, so we, of course, had to stop and capture it with its perfect white backdrop.

The wildlife in Montana is unlike any other. Every day we’re reminded that we live in the wild west, with deer, bald eagles, turkeys, mountain lions, moose, and bear literally living in our backyard.  On our adventure, we encountered one of these fierce creatures…this adorable deer!  With its thick winter fur coat and fluffy white tail, this little doe was reaching up to eat some nearby branches, only to get a face full of cold as the snow fell off the branches and onto her nose.

Our friend Banks is an incredibly talented photographer and videographer, we loved exploring with him and getting some input from him about our own photography.  One of the benefits of having awesome photographer friends is that they capture some pretty great shots of you.  Since we love being behind the camera, we rarely get shots of just us. So having Banks there to capture some fun moments between Chris and I was so nice!

Banks wanted to create a short video of Chris on our winter wonderland adventure, which you can click on the image above to watch.  You should absolutely head to Banks’ website, and his youtube channel to check out more of his work!

We’re hoping to get out again soon, maybe after our next big snowstorm to explore more of beautiful Montana in the winter. Hopefully, we’ll have more to share and inspire you with soon!