About
A photographer working in the Pacific Northwest, the American West, and anywhere worth going. I’ve been making photographs for fourteen years; I’ve been making them for couples since 2012.
I studied photography at BYU. My senior project, To Grow Old with You, was a documentary series on couples who had been married for fifty years and more. It was exhibited at the Harold B. Lee Library in 2012 and went on to be featured in Country Living, HuffPost, Yahoo, and on National Geographic Your Shot. The project is ongoing. It taught me what photographs are for.
Most of my work now is weddings — elopements and destination weddings especially — and a smaller stream of editorial and commissioned work. I live in Milwaukie, Oregon with my husband and our three small humans. I’m named Moikeha now; for a long time I went by Jarstad, and the older work still carries that name.
The thing I keep telling couples is that I don’t photograph what your day looks like. I photograph what it feels like. That’s the whole practice.
There is an old idea that where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your calling.
Mine is to be a storyteller. My medium is photography. Every frame I make is an attempt at the thing words can’t quite hold.
After the cake is eaten, the gifts opened, the dress folded into the back of a closet — what stays is what was recorded. Your wedding day will live on in your memory and in the images made that day. That is a serious thing to be trusted with.
If your day is full of laughter and noise, the images will be loud and bright. If it’s gentle and quiet, they will be too. I’m not interested in fabricating anything. When you look back, I want you to feel the day again — not just see it.
— Stephanie
Working alongside me
When my own calendar fills, weddings move to my team. Each associate is a photographer I’ve trained, watched shoot, and trust with the eye that built this studio. I sit beside every gallery before it goes to a couple. The aesthetic is mine; the care is shared.
The roster is small by design. If you’re a photographer interested in shooting with the studio, I’d love to talk.
As seen in