I used to stare at their photographs. Their work had something that most other photographers I come across just didn’t—it was a touch of true magic. It was in the way they stopped light and captured love, particularly between momma’s and their babies. TellChronicles was a little natural light studio owned by two sisters, wedged between a halal eatery and a nail salon in a strip of grungey stores in North Arlington. They have since closed their studio doors but I am so grateful for my time there. I learned so much in my 2.5 years there.

I found them through pure serendipity on Facebook when they first opened their studio.

At the time, Arlington was a very foreign place to me. A whole different world I had never explored or even known anyone from, so I assumed it was probably a grand place. I was not a grand girl but I reached out to the sisters anyway. I asked if I could be an intern with them and they politely declined, lol. All I had at the time was a year of university, some community college, a photography internship at Rosetta Stone and truly blind ambition driven by something my high school journalism teacher taught us: it never hurts to ask.

Regardless, I continued to follow them and watch their business unfold. Until one fateful afternoon when I saw them post that they were hiring. I emailed in such a hurry that all I sent was my website with a little email, forgetting to follow up with my resume, which I was sure was probably going to be the reason I didn’t get the job.

But then they emailed back a couple weeks later. We spoke on the phone, the coos of Emily’s little baby boy in the background and Julie’s voice full of passion. I went to visit late on a Sunday. And they hired me at the end of the interview.
I started off renting a car every weekend to drive up, staying at an Airbnb and then driving back home Sunday evenings to go to work during the week. I did that for a month until I realized I needed to move. So I left my hometown for the first time ever, knowing no one but Emily and Julie and knowing them only barely. But it didn’t matter, I was ready to jump and fall or fail or fly or get scraped up.

The studio was a big part of my growth. Maybe it gave me what I missed in never finishing school. It was a lovely plot point in my life and was the fork in the road that brought me to where I am now.