I’m Laura

Photographer. Cook. Builder. Storyteller. Currently based in Idaho Falls, by way of Georgia, and before that, by way of art school, which is where all of this actually started.

A landscape view of a river with grassy banks, a distant tree line, and a sky with blue and gray clouds at sunset.

Where It Started

I went to art school. Then, like a lot of people with a creative degree, I fell into something else entirely — seventeen years building and running a real estate team, good at it, proud of it, and slowly further from the thing I'd trained to do.

Ideas were never the hard part. Finishing them was. That's a lesson real estate taught me as much as anything else, and it's stuck with me long after I left it behind.

Person in black outdoor gear, wearing gloves and sunglasses, posing on rocky terrain at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Signage shows the summit is at 5895 meters (19341 feet) above sea level, with a mountain flag behind it.

The Move West

In 2023, I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Nine days, 19,341 feet. Something about standing at that summit made the next decision obvious in a way it hadn't been before.

Not long after, I sold my house, packed up my life, and moved 2,000 miles west to Idaho, alone, with no real plan beyond wanting to build something that was actually mine. I bought a few acres with mountain views, built a home, and started over. Two years in, it's still the best decision I've made.

Outdoor patio with a fire table, two chairs with cushions, and a view of trees and a fence during sunset.

What I’m Building Now

Hyline Studio is where all of it lives: the photography, a cookbook I've been building recipe by recipe, essays and field notes, the home I'm slowly shaping into what I want it to be, and the creative partnerships I take on along the way.

Children and adults at a backyard gathering with outdoor furniture and a screened porch, during dusk.

The photography goes back further than any of it. I was seven when I got my first camera, a Polaroid, and I've been looking at the world through a lens ever since.

A woman wearing a black top, checkered apron, and necklace, standing in a kitchen with wooden cabinets and a coffee maker in the background.

The cookbook is newer, but it means just as much. It's built from recipes my mom and I have made for years, hers first, then mine, then both of ours together. Every recipe in it has a history behind it, and putting them in one place has turned into its own kind of homecoming.

Most mornings start with coffee on the front porch, before anything else starts. Fridays, when I can manage it, are for the mountains: hiking, exploring, or just sitting somewhere thinking about the next thing I want to make.

If you’re here for creative work

I take on a limited number of creative partnerships — photography, brand storytelling, and home and design projects for people who want a story told well, not just content delivered. If that's what brought you here, I'd love to hear what you're building.