We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emma Richards a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Emma, appreciate you joining us today. Before we talk about all of your success, let’s start with a story of failure. Can you open up about a time when you’ve failed?

The greatest failure I’ve experienced stems from believing that I was the failure itself. Or maybe more so, the failure being my ADHD. I’ve struggled with ADHD and Anxiety for a long time now, and I am pretty open about it on my Instagram page for my business. One, because mental health is important, but two because a lot more people go through things like this than I realized. I’ve missed deadlines before, I’ve procrastinated, and I’ve underdelivered when I’ve already overpromised. It’s hard when you’ve disappointed one of your clients and it’s easy for imposter syndrome to creep in and make you question what you’re doing and if you’re really qualified to do it. A lot of these failures were from the mistake of putting too much on my plate, like a full-time undergrad schedule, working two part-time jobs, maintaining friendships, and a long-distance relationship, all while putting efforts towards running a successful self-owned business. But there was also a piece of these failures that I put on my ADHD and allowed it to consume me. I’ve been in therapy for almost a couple of years now and one of the greatest things I learned is that my ADHD, and even my anxiety can be used as a tool. I can work with my ADHD to push past these mistakes and to be a better business owner and honestly, a better human, because ADHD is something that affects my daily life.

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?

My name is Emma Grace. I am a traveling wedding photographer based in Columbus, Ohio. I specialize in capturing your genuine moments and making you feel alllll the feels. Genuine and authentic memories are what I strive to create with my couples by truly getting to know them, making them feel comfortable with me and my camera, and allowing them to live in the present. From the very beginning, I show my couples that I am on their team. From the first inquiry, I create a custom wedding timeline with them, we plan their engagement session together and are constantly dreaming about their wedding as we plan how my photography can serve them as they begin their marriage together. From the beach of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to downtown Santa Ana, California, to the red rock in Sedona, Arizona, to family land in sweet Ohio, my job is to serve my couples by documenting the most beautiful memories from the best day/weekend of their lives as they join their lives together.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

The importance of healthy relationships is something that really pushes me to capture love stories for my amazing couples. I discuss things like the Enneagram, love languages, and so much more with my couples. We practice living in the present and sharing our hearts with each other — YES! All through photography. Getting to know my couples and their hearts is truly something that is so important to me so that I can better serve my clients, but to also create that genuine connection with each other so that it’s not awkward or uncomfy when they are in front of the camera — especially on the best day of their lives when I’m following them around for 6+ hours on their wedding day!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

As I’ve mentioned, a genuine connection is important to me. With my clients, through my social media presence, with my relationships with other photographers, etc. A big part of that has been being vulnerable myself, and challenging myself to be my true and uniquely authentic self online. The biggest way I’ve done that is though Instagram Stories. I am probably the worst “Instagram poster” out there. But Instagram stories is my safe place where I can chat with my clients, my potential clients, my photographer friends, my followers who are just there to support the journey, and anyone else who wants to follow along. I’ve had some awesome connections with people through my IG stories and truly that’s what got my to where I am and the bookings/followers that have come my way at EGP.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.emmgrce.com
• Instagram: @emmgrcephotography
• Facebook: Emmgrcephotography

Image Credits
@emmgrcephotogaphy