To Be Real

When you spend 40 minutes searching for an email and finally figure out the message was a voicemail. 📞🙄💻 Always the last place you look, lol. 

Navigating social media and cultivating client relationships as a small business owner is often overwhelming. I research and study these concepts and mostly encounter conflicting themes. Most of my well-versed marketing acquaintances encourage a ‘storytelling’ approach, a mix of client-centric (the problem you have + the solution I provide) and experiential (what is it like to work together and what am I ‘about’) material. This seems much simpler to achieve in person and nerve-wracking to execute electronically … IG Reels, TikTok videos, LinkedIn posts, Google biz, Pinterest boards, gees … sometimes I miss the days of snail mail. Whatever the reason, I’m ready to share a little insight into the ‘me’ part of my commercial photography world here on this lovely, quiet blog page. Keep coming back. I won’t subject anyone to everything in one dose, ha! 

I laugh at myself a lot, hence the goofball photograph above. Laughter and experiencing joy are crucial elements to growing comfortable in front of the camera lens and uncovering the authentic expressions for communicative headshots, brand photographs, and portraits. I love creating moody, dramatic images, too, yet it is the bright, expressive style that brings executives, actors, models, entrepreneurs, and families to my studio.

I thought I would be a fine art and street photographer. Instead, I discovered that I am a people photographer. Surprisingly, the relationships and the interactions away from the camera jazz me up as much as the photographs themselves and provide endless personal motivation. Achieving your goals with your photographs is my goal.

Completing my BFA was one of the best decisions I ever made. The experience opened my world view, and the exposure to, and immersion in, other art forms helped me learn to see. I now possess a refreshed and ever-evolving personal lens through which to create my work and experience my surroundings.

I’m more self-critical than I need to be. Part of my attraction to headshot photography is my quest to look good in front of the camera. There, I said it. I get what you’re going through.

The smell of fresh-cut grass is one of the most luxurious aromas ever. My office window is open now, and I want to bottle that glorious air.

I geek out over smile and expression psychology and reading about it informs and molds my headshot and portrait work. 

My dad taught me to box. He also gave me my first camera. Not sure these two things directly relate, but they are important to me.

Enough for now. More to come. Stay real and stay tuned.