Rooted in family, memory & the ordinary

I'm Christina, the photographer behind Maple & Shaw Photo Co. I started photographing people back in 2012, which feels a little wild to say now. Over the years, I've been privileged to photograph families, couples, weddings and all kinds of seasons in between - sometimes consistently, and sometimes with my camera taking a quieter place in my life.

Photography has actually existed alongside a completely different career for most of that time. I've spent more than a decade working in Human Resources for the federal government, while photography remained the creative part of my life that I kept finding my way back to.

Maple & Shaw feels different though. It isn't about simply picking up where I left off. It's about building something with intention and focusing on the kind of photography I love most - photography shaped by the way I see and connect with people.

There are pieces of my history woven into Maple & Shaw. Maple comes from the tree outside my childhood home - an old brick house where the door was always open, family and friends came and went, and so much of our everyday life was photographed along the way. Shaw is my mom's maiden name, a nod to the person who first showed me how meaningful it can be to notice and capture what's happening around you.

That history still influences the way I photograph people today. I love the beautiful portrait everyone looks at the camera for, but I'm just as interested in everything happening around it - the way your child reaches for you, the laugh that happens when the pose falls apart, a familiar expression, or the glance between two people who know each other by heart.

Becoming a mom has only made me feel that more deeply. Time moves quickly, and somehow the most ordinary pieces of life become the ones we would give anything to see again.