Although her parents disagreed with her choice of majors, Allyson Bush persisted, earning a studio art degree from Oklahoma State University in 2012. The Mangum native then had to figure out how to use that degree in a world that was in an economic recession.

Bush became interested in photography in a thoroughly modern way, through the iPhone. The first iPhone was launched while she was a senior in high school. Although she didn't own one, "it really just inspired me to want to get to know the digital version that our life was going to become.

"I begged my parents as I was a freshman in colleg...