My name is Stephanie Hatzenbuehler and welcome to Lula Inc.

I live in Portland, Maine with my husband, two kids, and my dog. I spent my childhood in Pocatello (Pocasmello), a small, sleepy town in southeastern Idaho where the Rocky Mountains meet the Utah desert. The wind is ferocious. The majority of my time was spent trying to find a way out of Idaho which I finally did when I went to college.  Shortly after, I fell foolishly in love with a boy I happened to know from childhood (the irony!) and married him as fast as I could in Jackson Hole, WY.

I was raised Mormon.  He was raised Catholic.  You can imagine how well that went over. And please don't ask me what we practice now because a good answer doesn't exist.  We're nothing and everything all wrapped up in strong feelings about the benefits of having good manners.

Technically, I'm a social worker who really loves being a social worker, but I happen to love being a photographer more.  So that's what I do.  I take pictures and write about it.  I write about photography and family and politics and movies.  And while I love the whimsy and lightness of my work, I also take it very seriously.  I believe strongly that the right picture taken by the right person can be transforming. 

The name Lula seemed a very easy choice when thinking of a way to best represent my work. Lula is my grandmother, one of the most influential people in the process of developing my sense of creativity.  Any given day, you could find us finger painting on the walls or spending hours in the kitchen baking bread and lemon meringue pie.  She walked a very fine line between madness and brilliance and was rarely afraid to show her true colors. She was the person people came to for everything.
 
I'm tall, I like chocolate, I love living on the water, and I have absolutely no idea what I would do without my morning cup of coffee.