While this experience is VERY much about you, I realize you knowing a bit about me can only help you feel more at ease. I started this studio in 2009 when I was just 22 years old and have not worked a day for anyone else since. I have photographed countless beautiful humans over my many years of being blessed playing dress up and creating art for a living. ​ I have a home portrait studio, with my husband and our 7 cats (yessss I know that's a lot! But the studio is separated from the rest of my house so you won't see the husband or my cats during your shoot!) I love antiquing, designing sets, decorating my home, exploring cute little towns, obviously I'm a cat person. ​ I love creating creative jewelry pieces (seriously check out my shop page on this site or search TheTinkBasilica on etsy!) ​ History of the home studio I was born in raised in a small pink house on the north side of Lansing Michigan. I'm still here (Lansing) but am now on the north east side. I started the studio in a little guest house in okemos which was once a pony barn, turned guest house in the 70s, I started with a camera, the best lighting set I could afford, a closet full of inherited vintage clothing, and 3 or 4 paper seamless backdrops and a determination that I wasn't going to be left at the whim of any employer anymore but myself. ​ From there I moved into the tiniest cinderblock house, painted in pink and after a whole summer of renovations and scraping grease off the cupboards and getting rid of cat pee smell...(it was in bad shape..) I made it as functional as a pinup studio as I could. I managed to get 4 physical sets out of the place (a tiny pink bed in the corner of the styling room upstairs with a vintage tv, a vintage kitchen, a vintage bathroom with a clawfoot tub, a 1950s leopard print couch with red curtains (which was my main living room couch) and there was just enough space to put down a small board in front of the couch for seamless paper backdrops so heels wouldn't pop thru them on the soft carpet. ​ Two years I made that work...but it gave me enough work to save to buy a 2200sqft house that was laid out perfectly for the pinup studio of my dreams. It was the first and only house I looked at. Built in 1902 it was renovated in the mid century and still had a lot of its charm, arched door ways, mid century cabinet pulls. Best of all closets galore! And a huge workshop space for the husband out back with a gigantic attic to store all my props. It was embarrassingly bare when I moved in, but I quickly filled it to the brim with retro furniture. And I am still here today! Since 2012. The history on the house itself is fascinating, The first owner documented that I could find (1910s) was a model T car mechanic. After a prominent black family owned the house in the 20s, the dad was a brick layer who worked on many historical Lansing buildings. The mom was friends with R.E. Old's wife and was the first woman of color to join the Reotown women's league. Their daughter went on to study abroad and had an overlook up north named after her in honor of her years working in the Michigan State dept. of transportation. Those who know Lansing will know the Frandor shopping center, which was built in the 1950s, well the couple that built it lived here in my house in the 1930s/40s. He ran a lumber yard company from the house and even added on a home office (currently the styling room for the studio). After they moved out the next family's father was a minister, who would hold church meetings in our now workshop. In the 1960s a family moved who owned a local grocery store, and the dad was a mounted sheriff (which means he rode a horse!) I bought the house from his children. And now I take half naked photos of ladies on the weekly all over their hardwood floors :-) ​ The house has a long history in interesting humans creating lives for themselves here and I'm honored to be the current custodian of it.