Today we’d like to introduce you to Samantha Reed
Hi Samantha, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Well first and foremost, I’m Sam Reed. I’m a lifestyle photographer currently based in Philadelphia, PA but my story goes back to a teenie tiny town in Western NY named Albion. Once I graduated college I moved out to Buffalo, NY and started to pursue concert photography. As someone who was always super passionate about music, photography was a super cool side hobby that quickly turned to a new passion. I spent years taking photos of shows big and small, travelling across the country to photograph music festivals, and completely falling in love with photography.
While chasing that thrilling feeling of photographing my favorite artists I began to learn portrait photography skills through the help of trusting friends willing to play model for me. I took jobs with preschool portrait photography and in hospital newborn photography companies to give me more knowledge both on the technical side of things, but also the interpersonal side. I was still in my early 20’s during these jobs and both helped me learn a lot of critical skills that I still carry with me to this day. I took the opportunity to photograph anything and everything that folks would trust me doing so I could continue to grow and learn every facet of photography I could.
By the end of 2019 I had a small, but amazing set of clientele from Buffalo, but I was still working various side jobs to be able to get by and couldn’t commit myself fully to my dreams of running my own photography business full time. 2020 was going to see my move to Philadelphia and it was a goal of mine to transition to photography FT following my move. Naturally, two weeks following my move COVID-19 struck the world and shut everything down, stiffling my plans temporarily. But I spent that time trying to gain a sense of community in the chaos. I joined neighborhood Facebook groups and networking groups on social media to help get my name out there. As a transplant, it can be really difficult to meet new people, so even if I wasn’t able to get out and photograph, I could still be getting my name out there and connecting with other people.
And I did just that! So once the time came where I could feel comfortable being around people again, it was a bit easier to begin marketing my services. I ran one Facebook ad and was able to get a few families to join me for fall mini sessions. One of those lovely mama’s wrote a rave review for me in a local group for mom’s and the inquiries began to come in and word of mouth began to spread. I’ve been really lucky to have such an incredible group of clients who are always happy to refer others to me and that’s been a pivotal part in growing my clientele to where it is today. Each year I saw more clients than the year before and in April of 2023 I made the leap to getting a studio space of my own – and that’s where my business really began to blossom.
Now I have a beautiful space that I provide a variety of lifestyle (family, maternity, newborn, branding) and boudoir sessions in. I’ve spent the better part of the last 11 years now working to this moment, where I can confidently provide a wide array of photography services to fit my client’s needs. From their proposal, to the birth of their first baby, and all of the little moment’s inbetween, I’m here to help my clients capture the beauty in all of their life’s moments.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s certainly been a very long road to say the least! Photography, much like starting any business really, has a lot of upfront expenses to make it happen. It’s the actual gear, your computer/laptop, editing software, storage, website and gallery delivery services, endless monthly subscriptions, etc. The costs add up into the tens of thousands quickly and that wasn’t an amount of money that I had access to for a huge part of my life. It took many, many years of working multiple jobs and pulling double shifts to get to a point of financial security that I could invest in myself and my goals.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
So I’m a lifestyle photographer and I’m known for focusing more on photographing real moments in a beautiful way. Think less posing, more doing. My whole goal for every session is to create an environment for my clients that allows them to feel comfortable enough to be themselves, kids included! The more comfortable everyone is, the more natural and genuine every image becomes so it’s my job to build a space that lets my clients shine! Sometimes that means sitting back and just letting my clients exist, sometimes is giving gentle prompts to inspire movement, and sometimes it’s evoking emotion through chatting with my clients. No two sessions ever go the same way because every individual I work with is different, inspiring different experiences! And honestly that’s also something I’m most proud of – especially when it comes to working with toddlers/young children. I want kids to think ‘Miss Sam is so nice’ or ‘so fun’ not ‘Miss Sam forces us to smile and do things we don’t want to.’ So I really focus on being patient and creative in my approach with children, making sure they feel seen and heard while managing their actions in a way that makes for beautiful family photos for their parents!
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I’d be remiss to think that a little bit of good luck hasn’t played a role in my life and business at large. Granted, the scales are tipped much more heavily in favor of my endless hard work, but luck has ABSOLUTELY played a hand in my journey. When I first moved to Philadelphia my first clients were absolute GEMS of humans. And while I impressed them with my skills and talents during our session together, it was luck that they were my ideal clients before I even knew what my ideal client was! They really became the building blocks of who I wanted my clientele to be and to this day I really attribute a lot of my success within my community to those first few clients who took a chance on me and recommended me to others through neighborhood Facebook groups!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://samreedphoto.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/samreedphoto
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/samreedphoto