Hello and welcome back to our monthly newsletter, where you’ll get all the latest a&b and studio news that’s fit to print: Where we’ve been and are heading, what we’re shooting and studio updates, along with some of our favorite things & people. Know someone who might like to receive this in their inbox on First Friday’s as well, please forward this free post to them and thank you!

current location📍

We remain back “home” in Colorado through summer, enjoying the milder mountain temps at 8500 feet while being cognizant of wildfires. Thankfully there aren’t any in our immediate area, but most fireworks shows across the state were cancelled or postponed, as they should be, and our hearts break for those affected.

in the rear view ↩️

June was overall a pretty quiet month for us and we didn’t mind one bit.

We started off the month getting to see P&O who were visiting Garden of the Gods for the day. We met that night for drinks and dinner in downtown Colorado Springs and picked up right where we left off almost a year to the day after meeting them at Camp Airstream in Yellowstone last June. So, so great to see them in our neck of the woods and we hope to make getting together an annual thing at the very least because they are just awesome, wonderful people.

PS — If you haven’t been to Garden of the Gods, you must go. Right. Now.

Mid-month saw us back in Taos, more about the specific reason why below under Artist Spotlight, but we were thrilled to meet up with Tina & Eric Hedin, each of whom write beautiful Substacks about their RV travels and dealing with the devastating loss of their daughter. (I believe Anne first found Tina via her Modern Love essay, We Didn’t Know It Was the Last Time, which if you don’t read that column on a regular basis, why not?) Tina is also a talented photographer whose art will very likely make you want to chuck everything and take to the open road, as well. Seriously, how beautiful are these abstracts of sand?

We had been DM & text buddies and had had several near misses where our travels almost lined up, but the RV gods finally smiled upon us and we met up for drinks in Taos. They are just as lovely and as open and beautiful as we knew they would be and time went much, much too fast. We all know we’ll be meet up again. 💖

Nearly every Colorado mountain town first started as a mining community. While some are still active, many are dormant. That doesn’t stop some from celebrating their history which sometimes includes donkeys. The pack animals were instrumental in hauling small loads from A to B back in the day. Today, they spend most of their time grazing in peaceful mountain pastures, but occasionally get rarin’ to go for some racing. See our post from Creede Donkey Days for that town’s fun and emotional celebration. This year we were a bit closer to Cripple Creek, so we enjoyed the round up there at nearly 10,000 feet amid unseasonable warmth and high winds. It clearly deterred no one and the ice cream shops did brisk business that day.

travel journal 📔

Did you miss our Journal post from Glacier National Park, one of favorite national parks?

Next up is Carlsbad National Park!

cats crossing 🐈‍⬛

As you know, we’re not alone on this journey of ours, thankfully. Our dear kitties, Frankie and Willow are with us providing much needed cuddles and lots of laughs, always. 

u-turnin’ ⏎

Did you miss any of the past month’s Tranquil Tuesdays?

points of interest 📷

Where we offer a digestible photo tip you can use next time you’re out.

You can often tell an even better story with your photos when you’re not composing solely for the obvious scene. There’s the action, and then there’s the environment and reactions all around the action. Next time you’re at an event and pull out your phone for a photo, try either:

• Looking past the action to those watching. Frame your picture to get both the action and the observers, but focus on the observer. A shallower depth of field (e.g., f/2.8 or f/4) offers more of a hint of the action, but you need it deep enough for viewers to identify it.
• Zoom out (sometimes this means taking a few steps back) so that you have not just the action, but the entire scene around you. Oftentimes, there’s so much going on and makes your photo that much more interesting.

And then of course, crop! Cropping is your friend. Get rid of distractions and anything that doesn’t add to the photo. We’ll get into cropping techniques in another post.

wild hearts 💓

Where we share sightings of hearts in the wild, because who among us couldn’t use a little more love?

artist spotlight 🔦

We first discovered the incomparable Gregory Alan Isakov in the Haunting of Hill House finale on Netflix—a must watch if you haven’t seen it—so, so amazing on many levels. (We even re-watched it a few years later and if you know Bill, he never rewatches anything!) Gregory’s song If I Go, I’m Goin’ plays during the final scene and when the credits rolled, we kept rewinding and replaying it! We immediately went and found the version on his 2016 album with the Colorado Symphony. We soon discovered the rest of his incredible library and realized how late to the party we were, especially after learning he owned and worked a produce farm in Boulder County.

We’ve now been lucky enough to have now seen him a bakers dozen of times from a small vintage theater in Colorado Springs to the grand Boettcher Hall with the Colorado Symphony to the always awe-inspiring Red Rocks to the tiny Pappy & Harriets outside of Joshua Tree. And most recently, we headed down to Taos for a quick weekend trip. He usually sells out everywhere he plays and he fits in no matter the venue. 

And his band, made up of his best friends (and you can tell), is absolutely at the top of their game, too. 

Going to live music can be a pain and obviously expensive so he’s one of a handful we think are really worth it these days. Highly, highly recommend checking him out and if you already know of him, hit reply—we’d love to hear what some of your favorite songs are!

“wish you were here” 👋 (Featured Gallery)

One of the photographs we chose for this season’s Love Notes Postcard Project is from New Zealand (shhh, no spoilers here) so our incredible trip there back in 2010 has been on our mind as we reminisce about it for the Love Notes personal letter. While it’s too late to join for this season, sign up at the link above and you’ll be notified as soon as the Fall collection is open for membership in early September.

New Zealand is a commitment, mostly of time, but we’ve been dying to get back ever since. Especially since we didn’t also have time to visit Australia while over there. Sigh. So. Many. Places. So. Little. Time. And. Money! 🤣

Anne doesn’t remember where she first heard it, but quotes it often—that New Zealand has almost nothing that wants to kill you while Australia has everything that wants to kill you. But, yea, Anne still wants to go Down Under. Despite the spiders the size of houses (ed. note: A bit of an exaggeration, but they’re still sizable). (Seriously Bill had to post that link to them, because Anne cannot/refuses to even google it). Bill visited Perth & Tasmania while in the Navy and wouldn’t mind visiting again either.

Is NZ on your list? Have you been? Should we go back before we’re older and grayer? Hit reply and do tell!

on the radio 📻

On our trip to and from Taos, we were, of course, listening to alllll the GAI, but we alternated that with David Sedaris’s new audio book, The Land and It’s People. It is, not surprisingly, hilarious. Some books we read and some we listen to. David’s most definitely fall into the latter category. We haven’t yet finished it, since we haven’t been driving us much and we’re generally listening to music at home, but our favorite stories so far have been, Care & Feeding, The Hem of His Garment, and How to Eat a Tire in a Year. 

We were lucky enough to attend one of David’s readings at the Paramount Theater in Denver back in late 2013 on tour for his book “Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owl’s” and meet him afterwards. He signed our CD (!!) audio copy. We don’t remember what we talked about anymore, but remember he was a hoot. Haha!🦉

packing for our trip 🧳 

Holland Photo Arts Print Shop (start with our faves) (and the Oh Those Hollands! gift shop) is our full-time work. As artists, we love nothing more seeing our pieces proudly displayed in our clients’ home (yes, yours!). Giving a piece you love a home is one of the best ways you can help support us and our work. Also, see above Postcard Project!

Thank you! It means the world to us both. 💕

Lastly, if someone you know would enjoy this and Tranquil Tuesdays posts, please share this email or send your friends to our Journal to sign up. 

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June ’26 | May ’26 | April ’26 | March ’26 | February ’26