Tag Archive for: Missoula

Best of Portrait Photos 2017 Greener Visuals Photography Title page

I love this time of year. It’s a chance to reflect back on my Best of 2017 Portrait photos. To remember all of the fun I had with my clients over this past year. 2017 was a blast!

I feel blessed for all the new relationships I made throughout the year. It’s a gift for me to be able to tell candid, creative stories through photographs in southwest Montana and beyond!

During this recent trip around the sun, here are some of my favorite Best of 2017 Portrait photographs that I made. I look forward to what adventures await in 2018.

If you are in need of new family, business headshots, engagement photos, or an epic wedding photographer, Greener Visuals Photography is available for all your professional photographic needs in 2018!

Happy New Year everyone! -M

Greener Family Reunion Portraits in Missoula Montana

It’s amazing to me how busy we all can get wrapped up in our own lives. We are all guilty of it. While my parents are living close by in Missoula, my brother Eric and his wife Brandy are starting their new family in Anchorage, Alaska with their new daughter Molly. My sister has been busy working to finish her veterinarian school in Colorado. The Greener clan has been spread out over the last couple of years and we only manage to see each other once a year.

So when the opportunity to meet up last week in Missoula with my siblings, their families, my parents and grandma, naturally I wanted to bring my camera to document the rare family gathering. We were more concerned about hanging out and playing with my niece who is turning into a fun little kid.

We kept things casual and I made pictures when the creativity struck. Time flies when you are having fun and living life. Blink and eye and nieces, puppies and the rest of us all grow up. We had a lot of fun spending time together and I will cherish these moments. These are the good times. Here are a few of my favorites. -M

A couple weeks ago I had the chance to return to Montana, my favorite place on earth, to photograph the wedding of an old college friend Christina and her new husband Ryan. I got to know Christina during my time tromping around the Big Sky state while attending The University of Montana in my pursuit of my degree in Photojournalism. In between my time fly fishing mountain streams and trying to make it to class on time, I came to know her through mutual friends and her involvement in the Missoula art scene. Christina, a Montana native, is a very talented painter and ended up getting her degree in the Fine Arts. From there, it was off to New York City for her where she eventually met her fiancée Ryan randomly at a friend’s apartment. Oddly enough it turns out that they both were from the same western Montana town of Whitefish located up close to the entrance of Glacier National Park. I’m always amazed at the curveballs of coincidence life can through at people sometimes. Two years apart in age, Christina and Ryan never new one another growing up but found each other in one of the biggest cities on earth. Go figure. As they grew closer in their relationship, the two parted ways with the “Big Apple” and have since made a life together living and working in Portland, Oregon. When it came to plan their summer wedding the location was an obvious choice.

On their wedding day, I awoke early to drive north of Missoula (where I had been visiting my parents) past the cherry orchards along Flathead Lake and eventually made my way northeast towards the entrance of Glacier National Park. Christina and Ryan chose a cute little 40-acre ranch just outside of Coram, Montana called Glacier River Ranch that was bordered by the gin clear blue waters of the Flathead River. There are few things in life more picturesque than a Montana backdrop and that day I couldn’t think of any. I arrived early so I could scout around the area and get a feel for the place. As family members were helping to set up, I decided to walk around the grounds for possible portrait locations. As I came around the side of a big ponderosa pine tree I startled a young black bear (about 30 yards away from me) and he quickly stood up on his hind legs to get a better view of the blond haired photographer that had interrupted his mid morning berry feast. Soon uninterested, it sauntered off until the delicious smells of a wedding reception food brought it closer to the wedding location so much so that the ranch owner had to scare it off with some warning shots of her deer rifle. Only in Montana. Love it. The rest of the day mimicked the visions of a good Norman MacLean novel. The late August weather was perfect and their afternoon streamside reception was stunning as the golden Montana light lit up the trees as it slowly made its decent behind Teakettle Mountain. Like any proper Montana wedding the rest of the evening was spent eating roasted pig, drinking fine wine and Montana microbrews and dancing to live music from a local string band. It was so great to spend the day photographing such a fun couple and an honor to be asked to photograph the wedding of a old friend. I wish them all the best. -M

You can view the very best images from Ryan and Christina’s wedding under my portfolio wedding stories section here.     Or…

To see the entire wedding take you can see them all on my Photo Archive here.

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You know you’ve done something right when one of your past wedding couples refers you to their friends. I consider those gestures one of the highest compliments a photographer can receive. It lets me know that I am doing my job well.

Back in 2006, Abby and Johnny asked me to photograph their Teller Wildlife Refuge Slack House and Barn Wedding in western Montana after hearing about my photojournalistic style through their friends and my former clients.

It was the ultimate picturesque Montana cowboy wedding. Their outdoor wedding was held at this cute little ranch where the men were decked out in their cowboy boots and hats. They twirled the women in their summer dresses as they danced to the upbeat rhythms of bluegrass music. Summer was ending and with it, the days grew longer. Because of it, we were blessed with beautiful afternoon sunlight that made the dried wheat fields glow with a golden hue as the sun set over the Bitterroot Mountains. What more could a photographer ask for?