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Meet Holly Steen

Sitting and chatting with Holly Steen, one begins to understand why weddings and photography are so important to her. Her simple attitude of having fun and capturing moments shows in every image, within every wedding. She is a big smile, gracious laugh, and most important a true artist. With a tender sentence she shows her true passion.

"Being a wedding photographer is the best profession in the entire world. It isn't that I am just privileged to document the most important day of a couple's life, but I am also able to meet the incredible friends and warm family that surround them."

She reflects on her humble start with having to carry heavy equipment bags to being the leader of her own creative team, and starting her own company. She began her journey just like all stories, with a dream.

Every couple starts with a moment. It could be the conversation over Chai tea and obscure poetry, the sigh breathed when he first touched her hand, or when that girl enters the room, he smiles and says to his friends, "That's her."

Holly's eyes fill up a little with emotion. She continues.

"Every moment carries a special emotion with it. I found a peace when I could preserve these timeless moments with a click of my camera. The universe around me could be speeding by, but I could freeze time. Photography showed me that either a moment can pass by or could be captured to cherish endlessly."

After shooting a friends wedding in 2003, she brought the photos into an established studio in Beverly Hills. She placed her badly printed digital photos on the table, and said, "Hire me as a photographer, because I know I can do it! But more than that, I will do a great job." She was hired, but to do sales and carry photography equipment for the main photographer.

"I cry at every wedding. I know, it sounds silly, but when I notice the subtle way the groom touches her cheek, or during the father-daughter dance when he holds her so delicately, I get misty. Really, I am so emotionally touched, connected, I know in those moments that I am luckiest girl."

Holly's studio is praised and referred all over California, and in Colorado. She is a true documentary, wedding photographer. She has the skills to capture unscripted moments, tell the story of the day and lavishly document events as they unfold, but she also thinks it is also important that the emotion of the day is captured as well.

"Every time a bride tells me how grateful she is that I am there, or when the groom tells me how relaxed he is because of laughing at my terrible jokes, I know that I am in love with them... and photography."

Surrounded by all the aromatic bouquets, bubbling champagne, and the toe tapping music, there are two people that brought it all together: the wedding couple. But there is Holly, admist it all capturing capturing the emotions, the euphoria and the telling the story through beautiful images.

La vita e bella; la vita e amore. -- Life is beautiful; life is love.