Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the moment you've waited for...

…or maybe not. But, you are here now none the less so why don’t you stay a while? I have figured out recently that writing really helps me decompress and work through some feelings that are hard to process for me. I also think that I like being open and real with my clients. I feel like if you can know me on a personal level, it helps me connect more. There are people in the “Photography World” that would clutch their pearls at this post, and honestly, I am tired of following the rules that everyone feels like I need to follow. There is no magic answer to getting clients, there are 57 thousand photographers to choose from, and I feel like I would rather be my real self than put on some mask of fake positivity all the time and have to keep that up. I am a real person, and to me, being a real person is more important than being an internet famous photographer. (Although, I would love to be internet famous….😂)

So, I decided to an Introduction Post. So you can get to know me, and I can break the ice. Over the course of the year, I am going to try to write at least once a week. Some things will be photography related and some won’t. Some will be Mom related. Some will be emotional. Some will be just about how I suck at being a girl, or a friend, or at adulting in general. Y’all ready? Buckle up, the hot mess express is about to roll into the station!

So first, a little about me personally….if you haven’t ever met me in real life, my name is Brynne Owen. I am from East Texas, and currently live in the tiny town of Brownsboro. Which I love. I have been married to my husband, John David, for almost 12 years. I met him right after high school 15 years ago, and I have been annoying him ever since. He is my best friend, the roots to my wings, my biggest supporter, the Type A to my Type B, my travel partner, and we have such a great time that everyone around us thinks we talk in code. We fight probably as much as we laugh, but that is just who we are as people and we have both come to terms with it! 😂😂 I have three amazing kids- Kenzi who is 11 and in 6th grade, Beckett who is 9 and in 4th grade, and our baby Jensen who is almost 5. I am a extremely proud Allstar Cheer Mom, Baseball Mom, and Dance Mom. They keep me hopping, on my toes, and running the roads. I love it. I am one of 4 kids myself, and I am so close to my family. We have a wild crazy crew and I wouldn’t trade them for the world. I have been a RN for 5 years, and I work in Clinical Documentation specialist at a local hospital and I am obsessed with my job. I love it literally just as much as photography-so I am lucky to have two dream jobs that I enjoy.

Some things that I love. I love Jesus…he died for you and me. I love my kids, obviously. I love baseball…but, mostly I love the Red Sox. I love Boston, if I wasn’t so rooted in Texas I would pick up and move there right now. The city, the people, the atmosphere….I love everything about it and we go every year.. I love traveling with my husband. I love the beach….especially the beaches of 30A in Florida. Being by the sea speaks to my soul and calms my spirit. I could sit for hours in the sand and watch the waves roll in. It is one of my many happy places. I love raising my favorite baseball player too. Being at the baseball field in the summer, even when it is hot, even when it is raining, I love to watch Beckett play. Late nights and ballpark lights are one of the great things in life. I love being a cheer Mom. Allstar cheer is such a physically and mentally demanding sport, and Kenzi is all in. She spends more hours at the gym during season, she works so hard, and I love watching her. I have made some pretty great cheer Mom friends along the way and we love going out of town for Competitions and spending the weekend with out girls, the makeup, the hair, the amazing stunts, the dance, the tumbling….I love it ALL.I love fairy tales. I love fantasy stories. I love pancakes. I love my friends. I love going to the movies. I love sitting on my couch alone and binging on Netflix. I love bonfires. I love to read. I am a huge Potterhead and I have read the whole series probably over a hundred times in my life. It never gets old. I love staying up late, I am nocturnal by nature. I love a fire in my fireplace. And, I love my life. I have worked hard to get where I am, and I remember vividly a time when I prayed for what I have now.

I love photography…like, really love it. It has been something that I have loved from a really young age. There was hardly a time from about 7th grade on that you never caught me without a disposable camera in my hand. I took SO MANY PICTURES. I love looking back at them now. In high school, I took photography from an amazing teacher who helped me learn how to develop my own film and how to work in a dark room. It was amazing. I shot everything with a 1970s Minolta and it was the best. I started doing photography as an adult when I was a poor young married Mom who couldn’t afford to go have pictures taken as much as I wanted. I started with my Mom’s Canon Rebel and I sucked. 😂 BUT, it was a start. And from there, people started to ask me to take photos for them, and sent their friends to me. I kept taking photos of my own kids. My business was born and I hit the ground running. I had to learn a lot, I changed a lot, I made a lot of mistakes, and I shot a LOT of sessions. I grew, my business grew, and then……….I got stuck. Stuck in a place feeling like I had a job. Stuck in a place feeling like I was taking jobs that I didn’t love because I needed to make money. Stuck in a rut creatively. Stuck where I never shot my kids any more. Stuck where my editing list was so overwhelming that I put everything off until the last minute. Stuck in a place where I wasn’t happy. Stuck. Stuck. Stuck. I wasn’t happy. I was short with my kids. I was short with my husband. I was never home. I constantly had messages and texts and calls. I was miserable and I came VERY close to throwing the towel in and being done. I cried. A lot. I prayed. I talked it to death with my husband. And then……I changed. I started shooting things that made me happy. I started shooting my kids again. I started bringing all the magic things I see in my head to life. And all at once, I was happy again. I am so proud of my growth over the last year. And that whole story will for SURE be a blog post soon. Because, it deserves it’s own post. It’s a good one, I promise. :)

But, along with doing this blog once a week, I am going to incorporate my 52 week project, so I will be posting it along with it-whether it’s related or not! <3 So below, is a photo that I took last week that I am super proud of. Honestly, even if no one likes it, it speaks to me so much. <3

Again, welcome to my circus. I am excited to start this project-and thank you to all 4 of you for supporting and reading my blog! 😂

Why I took the word "Cheese" out of my vocabulary...

Good afternoon you guys! It's been a couple of weeks since I dropped the Price lecture on you, so I took a little break. Actually, let's be honest, I am not sure if anyone even reads my blogs...however, I love being able to use this as an outlet and a way for you to get to know me better. It also helps you understand some of the business practices I have, why I do them a certain way, and maybe why I have changed things recently. My shift in branding threw everyone off a little, including myself, and I am finally finding my feet again on solid ground. Going from trying to be an exclusive wedding photographer to exclusively a children's photographer is a HUGE leap. It's a big difference in money, it's a huge difference in shooting....it's just different. But kids are my happy place, and capturing a magical childhood feeds my soul, and makes all of the time and effort worth it to me. That passion that I have truly shines through when I am shooting things I love.

So, what does the title of this blog have to do with all of this you ask? I am about to tell you! <3

As long as I can remember, I have said, whispered, screamed, and chanted the word "Cheese" during my sessions. "Say Cheese baby!" "Cheeeeese" "Cheeseburgerrrrr".....because everyone wants that perfect smiling picture of their kiddo looking at the camera and sitting just right, RIGHT? Maybe. Or maybe they just think they do. But, let me tell you what they really need, and they don't even really know it. They need pictures of their kiddo being THEIR kiddo. Playing, rolling around in the grass, exploring, doing that precious little face that they make when they are thinking too hard, crying, and yes, laughing. But, saying cheese, or trying to force a smile out of a kid definitely doesn't accomplish that. I cannot believe that it took me 9 long years to really realize it. Kids are kids. They are really gonna do what they want to do, and if you try to force them to do what YOU want them to do, all while forcing a camera in their face and screaming at them.....inevitably they are going to cry. And then it starts all over, with a red blotchy face, and tear stained cheeks, and tear filled eyes. And that causes frustration in parents, and anxiety in babies. They don't understand, and they are SO overstimulated and they have NO idea who to look at or what to do. So, they cry. And understandably. 

So I decided it was time to try a new approach. Let them be little. Talk to them, interact with them, play with them....and magic happened. Since I have started that, I try to start every session by telling Mom, Dad and kiddo..."I am NOT going to ask you to smile." Sure, I get some weird looks, but I tell them to trust me. If I get smiles, I want them to be genuine. I want them to be real. I want them to emulate childhood joy and laughter. Because when you tell a kid to smile, that is NOT what you get. When they are older, grown, in college and you look back at the pictures on the wall of them looking curious, or running, or rolling around, or even CRYING...you are going to feel your heart clench up a little bit. And I promise you won't be upset that they weren't sitting perfectly, with the perfect outfit, in the perfect position, with the perfect smile. Because childhood is anything but perfect. It's messy, and crazy , and chaotic, and happy, and perfectly IMPERFECT. And those memories that I get for you, will be the ones that you look back on and smile and say...."Do you remember that time...?" Parents, relax and enjoy the ride. Childhood is gone in an instant, and the next thing they are grown with children of their own. Enjoy each season of their lives. Because you only have so many days with them. 

I have also tried my best, and WILL continue to enforce a "50 foot rule" for my parents. This simply means, stay back, observe from a little ways back, and let me interact with your baby! Sit back and relax. Take it all in. I promise I have a method to my madness, but when there is 4 people standing at all angles behind me all screaming "SMILE!!!", they really have no idea who to look at, and they get frustrated. I will give you amazing memories. Trust me to do that for you. Let me be the one to give direction, and don't worry if they are running all over God's green creation....it's part of the job description being a baby/kid wrangler. It's my favorite part actually. 😍 

As we move into summer...I find my calendar more full than it has been in a very long time. It makes me humbled and blessed that so many people trust me with their memories. I cannot wait to see what comes of each one. Also, there are LOTS of fun themed sessions coming in the Summertime, so be on the look out. 

I would love to hear from you what you think about this blog, leave a comment to let me know! Maybe I will realize that I am not speaking into the great vast unknown with no one listening! 😂😂😂

As usual, I love you guys! And I will leave you with some pictures that I didn't say Cheese on....

Stars and Studio Lights✨

I have pretty much always been a creature of habit. It is a character flaw of mine. I find something that works efficiently and I cling to it like Rose clinging to Jack at the end of Titanic....well, maybe that was a bad comparison, but like Rose, it is time for me to let go of my habits and find new things to explore.

Studio photography is something that I briefly dabbled in when I shared a studio with another photographer in downtown Athens. It was a great space with tons of room, and I liked having a place that my client's could go and we could be shielded from weather, bad lighting, and anything else that has limits when you shoot outdoors. Problem was....I really had no idea what I was doing. I look back at those images now, and from a photographer standpoint, they are cringe worthy. Now, I KNOW those are people's memories, and they probably like them just fine. I, however, have taken off my rose colored glasses off and seen them for what they are worth. Now, for not knowing what I was doing and just winging the lighting until I got it where I wanted is pretty okay for someone who has never done it. But, the problem was I wasn't shooting with INTENTION and knowing exactly how I needed to do it to get the desired result. Some photographers call this "Spray and Pray". 😂 Which is exactly what I was doing, taking a MILLION frames and PRAYING that there was something worth using.

I stepped away from that studio quite a few years ago, and since then have basically sworn off of studio photography. I just thought it wasn't for me, and that I needed to let other people who were stellar at it have it. I didn't have the room for a studio, I didn't have the time to figure it out, and I didn't want to. There I said it. 😂 I was a snobby "natural light only" photographer. And until recently, I kept that mindset. 

Then something changed. I wanted a change. I wanted to explore some areas of photography that I had never mastered and try to make them what I wanted in my head. Why couldn't I keep a style like I wanted and still shoot studio? I didn't see why I couldn't, and why I had fought the idea for so long..... Well, I know partially because the money required to buy the equipment is a little more than I was wanting to spend at the time, because I knew to do it right, there would have to be some money spent up front. And, if you don't know my husband....he SUPER doesn't like spending money. And more specifically, the thinks I spend too much money. But, I do, in his defense. Sometimes. 

I sweet talked him into letting me buy a simple setup, for which I could turn my unused office into a studio at our house. My office has only been a catch all since we built our house 2 years ago, and I really never spent any time in there until about a month ago. It was full of crap I didn't want to deal with and stuff that I didn't want to organize...so I just threw it in there and closed the door. 

With this new decision, and the purchase of the equipment made, I started to get excited. I got in there on our Snow Days a few weeks ago and cleaned it top to bottom and started organizing all my stuff. Seperating things that needed to be for studio, and things that needed to be stored. I am really happy with the results! I started a stock studio wardrobe, with dresses, outfits, headpieces, and props so that people can choose from my beautiful stuff and make it easier on them

A few days later, my stuff came in, and I started practicing on my babies. The result is exactly what I have wanted in my head. A way to get simple, timeless, elegant portraits of my kids without a bunch of fuss. To be able to capture them just exactly as they are in that moment. Because they will never be that young ever again. That magic of that day and time will never be the same again. Magic in the ordinary. The ability to capture my preteen before she becomes a full blown teenager and no longer wants to be my only model, my son in his awkward but endearing years, my baby before she is a kid then a preteen then grown. 

I want to be able to do this for you too. You will absolutely not regret it.

With all that said, I am having a one time sale on Micro Minis this weekend so that I can get some good practice in. This Saturday and Sunday, and I have limited spots available. Email me or message me on Facebook for more info. They will never be this price again. 😘