We recently connected with Lauren Garrison and have shared our conversation below.

Lauren, appreciate you joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later?

It’s hard to say when my business began. I’ve been a working photographer since I was 17 years-old. For the past 13 years, I’ve been paid to photograph sessions and weddings, but I waited until January 2021 to “go full time”.

In my experience, photographers often get asked “Do you do this full time?”. For years, when asked the question, I said “yes”. Because yes, I worked on my business more than 40 hours per week. It became a full time job long before 2021, but while building my business, I had another job as well.

After college, I accepted a job as a graphic designer and video producer. For 6 years, I struggled to find enough hours in the day to work two full time jobs. I spent every spare evening and weekend taking photos and learning to run a business efficiently. During those years, every time I was asked “Do you do this full time?”, saying “yes” felt like a painful lie; something I wanted to be completely true, but just wasn’t. I did all I could to separate my two jobs and keep half of my life a secret from my clients.

If you Google “list of questions to ask when hiring a wedding photographer”, you’ll find this question included. Some blogs advise brides to only hire people who work for their business as a full time job and have no other distractions in their lives, but training clients to see this as a deal-breaker is harmful to everyone. It causes great photographers to be overlooked and brides to not hire the photographer who’s best for them. Being “full time” has a lot more to do with your age, stage in life, the income your family needs, and endless other factors. Everyone’s situation is different.

For years I struggled with the decision of when to leave my 9-5 job. I was confident in my abilities as a photographer and business owner, and I honestly wasn’t scared of stepping away from the corporate world. At the same time, I didn’t personally know many full time entrepreneurs, which made the decision feel that much more strange. Leaving felt like an obvious choice to me, but I wondered if there was some complication I wasn’t seeing.

As my business grew, I knew I had the potential to earn more income by focussing solely on my business, rather than spreading myself thin. At some point, I stopped viewing it as a risk to leave my 9-5 job. It became a risk NOT to. It was a risk to keep turning down projects that conflicted with my 9-5 job, a risk not to fulfill my dream, and a risk to lose my sanity keeping up with a wild schedule.

Looking back, I wish I had left my other job sooner, but I can only be grateful that I took the leap when I did. It was the best decision of my career so far. Today, I enjoy my new work-life balance so much!

Lauren, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a wedding, elopement, and proposal photographer based in Austin, Texas. I also photograph local high school and college seniors and manage a team of associates who photograph seniors under my brand.

My shooting and editing style is colorful, natural, and timeless. It’s easy to see tends that pass through the wedding world, because weddings are naturally so visual and filled with beautiful things! Words like “light & airy” or “dark & moody” get used to describe editing styles, but I’d say my style lands right in the middle. My client’s photos won’t look drastically different than the way everything looked in real life. I seek out bright and colorful backgrounds, and find beautiful natural light that will make them really stand out!

I want my clients to print and display their photos all over their home. While the people in the photos may age over time, I never want the style of their photos to look outdated or clearly from a certain era.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I’ve found that often times people choose not to work with professional photographer not because of the expense, but because of a certain fear or insecurity. My team and I love showing our couples and seniors that taking photos doesn’t need to be scary! At the start of nearly every session, a client will tell me that they tend to feel awkward and unnatural in front of a camera. It’s my job to prove them wrong! Everyone deserves to have photos that truly show their personality and style. We put a lot of thought into making every session a fun and smooth experience.

We personalize sessions by asking questions to get to know the client ahead of time, playing their favorite music, planning outfits together, and choosing beautiful locations that will make them feel comfortable.

It’s nice giving people the ability to look back on significant points in their lives. Years from now, I promise you won’t regret taking the time to document your life in this way.

I also like to stay in touch with my past brides & grooms on social media. Nearly every day on my Facebook feed, I see photos posted to celebrate anniversaries or to remember family members who have since passed away.

It’s really special receiving reviews from past clients, and reading about how the whole experience impacted them or was better than they could have expected. There are some clients who I’ve worked with many times, photographing their various milestones. It’s rewarding getting to build real relationships and watch their lives evolve.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

By no means do I have a giant social media following, but I do attract clients from Instagram and Facebook. As cliche as it sounds, your number of followers does not reflect your success as a business owner. That number doesn’t book sessions with you or pay your bills. This is something I still need to remind myself of on a daily basis.

Rather than putting the emphasis on the numbers, focus on the engagement from the followers you do have. Use social media as a secondary storefront to display your work and tell behind-the-scenes stories. Use every post to build credibility and trust with your current and potential clients. And please, please don’t try to keep up with every single trend. (Again, I’m saying this as a reminder to myself.)

I’ve also found that including local hashtags and locations is important. If you run a service based business in Texas, having tons of followers in Maryland probably doesn’t help you at all.

As fun as social media can be, I try to keep it in its place. During busy seasons, posting on Instagram tends to fall lower on my priority list. Communicating with clients and shooting and editing photos needs to be stay at the top of my list.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.laurengarrisonphotography.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurengarrisonphoto
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LaurenGarrisonPhoto

Image Credits
All photos are by Lauren Garrison