Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lindsay Lyons. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Lindsay, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.

Pose With The Lyons LLC covered the 2022 Teacher of the Year Gala at Camden Middle School in Camden, SC. We donated our time and photography services for something that means a lot to us. We also donated 5 mini sessions as well!

Every day teachers go to their prospective schools and risk their lives to teach our children. We are so thankful for everything teachers do daily and will continue to do throughout history. We appreciate that very much!

We were given a lot of praise and support for the generous donation of our time and expertise!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I started when I was a little girl (in the 90s) with my dad, Andrew. He would buy me a throwaway camera and would let me develop one every two weeks. He would take his camera and I would take my throw-away camera and we would take pictures of old abandoned buildings and places. We would develop them in black and white and then display them in an album that was on our coffee table. My love for photography grew from that point on.

My husband and I were together from the age of 13 until we were about 20. We were married at 18 (I was 3 months pregnant) and we had a son, named Jeremy, at the age of 18 (a month before we turned 19). We were divorced at 26 years old and I took back my maiden name of Ross, but we always stayed in contact because of our son and my husband’s family was my family. God brought us back together in 2015. In 2020, he proposed, and we were married (again) on April 24, 2021. I am once again known as Lindsay Lyons!

In 2008, I started taking my photography more seriously and started charging (a small amount) fees for my services. I was nowhere near where I wanted to be and I shouldn’t have been charging at all!

I didn’t start to get good until 2016 when I went to college for digital photography at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online. My husband supported my dream of becoming a photographer and he convinced me to go to college. College was the best thing I could have done! I learned the ins and outs of not only digital photography, but the business side of things as well.

I was known as Lyn Ross Photography, but as of June 2021, we are now known as Pose With The Lyons LLC. Our last name is Lyons and that’s where the name came from. My husband, Richard, helps me at weddings as a second shooter, and he sets up my mini sessions for me. He works full-time as an Independent Contractor during the week and helps me with photography on the weekends.

We offer mainly portraits and weddings/events, but we do a little bit of nature/landscape photography as well as product and branding photography.

It hasn’t been a smooth road at all! After going to college and being in college, I learned all about my camera. I had to learn how to set my camera settings to my surroundings in manual mode, I had to learn to shoot in raw, and I had to learn how to edit my images correctly. Almost the entire time I worked part-time, took care of a household, and raised our son, Jeremy (his dad was traveling for work at the time) I would have never known what I do now If I didn’t attend college and get my Associate’s Degree. in Digital Photography. The hardest part was the business side of things and the marketing. So, I spent countless hours teaching myself (what I didn’t learn in college) how to market my photography business and how to do business. I wouldn’t change a thing!

I just started a social media marketing company this year called Sociable Media Marketing by Pose With The Lyons LLC. We are hoping that takes off soon! I have been doing our own Marketing for years. I currently manage 4 companies including 3 that are mine and my husband’s. So, I am also a Social Media Manager!

Have you ever had to pivot?

Last year (2021) I had an AV Malformation in my back lower brain. My surgeon told me I had to have brain surgery in order to save my life because it was growing too fast. They did the first surgery in June of 2021 and I don’t remember most of that. After spending about a week in the hospital they sent me to a rehab facility that ultimately caused a bad staff infection and I had to have second brain surgery to save my life again. On my first go around with surgery and a hospital stay I spent 34 days between the hospital and rehab. Upon returning home, my in-laws moved in with us to help take care of me during the day and at night my husband would take care of me after working all day. I had to have a PICC line for 6 weeks after coming home to fight the infection in my brain. On September 2021, my mother-in-law passed away and she was my main caretaker at the time. That was a really hard life battle to deal with. We lost someone we loved very much and I have been trying to heal and take care of myself for about 8 months now.

Two days after the passing of my mother-in-law, we became young grandparents at the ripe old age of 37.

I have done about 7 smaller sessions this year due to my brain surgeries and all of my clients have been more than patient and understanding. Slowly, but surely I am getting back to the way I was and I can pursue my passion for photography even further than I have!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

In 2020, COVID19 hit us pretty hard! I heard about other photographers offering “Front Porch” sessions and I just knew I had to do this since no other photographers in my area were doing it at the time.

I ended up photographing 2 neighborhoods and a few other people during my front “Porch Project”. I offered my services for donations ONLY and we donated 50% to a couple of local families in need of food, clothes, etc during COVID19.

I met so many incredible people and I just know it helped to build my reputation in our communities. Since doing the “Front Door” project I have seen a huge increase in my photography sessions.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.posewiththelyons.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/posewiththelyons/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PoseWithTheLyons
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/posewiththelyons/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/PoseWithTheLyon

Image Credits
Pose With The Lyons LLC Lindsay & Richard Lyons