We caught up with the brilliant and insightful David & Jill Scruggs a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

David & Jill, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’re complete cheeseballs and so we love asking folks to share the most heartwarming moment from their career – do you have a touching moment you can share with us?

At first blush, one might not think of a boudoir photography studio as a health-and-wellness business. That certainly was the case for us as destination wedding photographers, When we pivoted to boudoir at the onset of the pandemic, we did so for the convenience of working from home and for the appealing creative aspects of the genre.

Our first brand-awareness promotion taught us that so many of the women in our market look to boudoir as a form of therapy to work through such past traumas as sexual abuse, cancer, psychological and emotional abuse, the impacts of childbearing and aging upon self-esteem, and even the simple fact that we live in a society where a woman’s value is still measured by her looks.

Once we understood our therapeutic role, photography simply became our technique for rendering aid to our clients to set them on a journey of self-love. Our photos became the empirical evidence our clients need to understand what it is about them that makes them uniquely beautiful, just as they are.

One of our favorite stories is that of a very meek and timid client who mustered the courage to book a session with us. She had a wonderful time being the center of attention and playing outside her comfort zone for a few hours. At her photo reveal, she literally cried at the beauty she saw in herself. A few days later, she called to say that she’d gone to work and had done something she’d never had the nerve to do: “I asked for a raise,” she said. “And I got it!”

We hear so many stories like that, and we love knowing that we’re making a positive difference in people’s lives.

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 back background and context?

We teamed up in 2017 for editorial photo shoots, got along well enough to formalize our business relationship. We formed One Soul Photography in 2018 and concentrated on photographing destination weddings. We’ve covered destination weddings and elopements in France, England, the Caribbean and Mexico, Domestically, we’ve photographed newlyweds at the base of a Harding Icefield glacier near Seward, Alaska, we’ve shot a wedding at the Hemingway House and Museum in Key West, and at a variety of interesting places in between.

When we began concentrating on boudoir, we repurposed a third of our home in Marietta as a home studio, from where we grew our business. In October of 2021, we moved into a five-room office space on Marietta Square that we redecorated with distinctive sets for our clients.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Following on our answer to the first question, we had to change our thinking about the genre we’re photographing. We went into it with the assumption that our clients would be women who just wanted to take some fun, sassy photos for themselves or as a gift to a significant other. We learned that these clients are very much in the minority. Most of our clients visit us as a step toward rebuilding self-worth, gaining self-confidence, and accepting and embracing their who they see in the mirror.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Social media marketing gave us the momentum we needed to build a Facebook community of One Soul Boudoir fans and past and future clients. From there, reputation and word of mouth have become our main drivers in gaining new clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://onesoulboudoir.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/onesoulboudoir
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/onesoulboudoir
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/onesoulphoto
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkWb436YKwOQ_tjvGb9eRIA
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/one-soul-boudoir-marietta
• Other: One Soul Women, our ladies-only community on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/onesoulVIPGroup

Image Credits
All these images are copyright One Soul Photography. All women depicted in the photos have signed agreements authorizing our use of their likenesses in our marketing.