About

My name is Mary Barghahn and I am a Natural Light Portrait Photographer based out of Traverse City, Michigan. Here are Top Ten “Get to know me quick!” Facts:

I worked 7 years as a teacher and 18 years as an elementary principal. I am happily retired from education and am enjoying photography as a second career.
Mary Barghahn Photography officially opened in August 2016.
I married a wonderful man named Paul in 1994. We have a handsome son named Cameron who attends Michigan State University and a beautiful daughter named Claire who attends Michigan Technological University.
We downsized our family home in White Lake, MI and moved to downtown Traverse City, MI in June 2019 – a week after our youngest graduated high school. It was a big task to sort through 25 years of stuff collected in a family household. Marie Kondo came to our rescue! We followed her method, thanked our extra possessions and donated/gave them away. It’s amazing how much stuff you have that you don’t need or use. Liberating!
We raise a crazy Shih Tzu named Pluto. Don’t let Pluto’s sweet face fool you- he shocks us weekly with some kind crazy antic. Note the pictures below of him standing smack in the middle of our kitchen table and him getting himself stuck in our pool fence!! LOL!
We love going on adventures around Michigan such as Sleeping Bear Dunes, biking the Tart Trails and kayaking Pictured Rocks. Just about any reason to be by one of our fresh water lakes will be reason enough.
Anytime we can venture out to the beautiful wineries of Traverse City, we are there! My extra special favorite places are Cider Houses or wineries with Hard Apple Cider on tap. Deeeeeeelish and the scenery is hard to beat.
DISNEY!! We are Disney people- hardcore Disney people. If you are a Disney person, you know what I mean! We have been in the DVC at Beach Club Villas since 2003. We have been going to Disney twice a year since then! Loooooooooove it.
All of the people in my family have red hair. I do, my husband does and both our kids do. We use a lot of 30 sunblock in the summer!
My husband and I did the Zoo-De-Mac in May 2016. It was a 50 mile bike ride from The Zoo Bar in Boyne, MI, to Mackinaw City, MI, with ferry tickets to Mackinaw Island to party in the bars all night. We had big plans to ignore how sore we were and celebrate our bike ride but ended up missing all the bar fun because we were asleep by 9:30pm!
We are huge Michigan State Spartans. My husband and I both went there and we met there- Aww!! We’ve definitely brainwashed our kids to be Spartans as well. We still love going to football tailgates, cheering on Izzo and eating burgers at Peanut Barrel. It is surreal we now get to do it with our son who is a student there!
(BONUS FACT): I would love to capture your memories and help you keep “A Focus on What Matters“!