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! 😂

Branching Out⭐️

So, when I logged into my blog it took me a minute to realize that it HAD actually been since April that I have blogged. The summer time is crazy, y'all. I feel like school just got out and I have turned around twice and summer is half OVER. It's insanity. But, here I am. Blogging again. :) 

I have decided to branch out a little, and offer some other cool things that I am pretty excited out. Let's talk....

WORKSHOPS.

I have been toying around with the idea of offering workshops for some time, but I have always been apprehensive. Photography is a very difficult profession. There are so many photographers in this area. So many really great photographers, and sometimes it is very easy for myself to feel inadequate. Not good enough. Not creative enough. Not this enough, not that enough. And, has also made me want to keep everything I do under wraps. Themes, ideas, locations...sometimes you feel like you work so hard to be original for someone to come right along and do exactly the same thing. And maybe they even cost less than you. And some people will sacrifice quality for price, and it really just is what it is. It's hard to feel like you stay relevant, and honestly, just adequate. Worth it. Whatever.

So, first and foremost I had to find my worth. What I felt like my time was worth. What it cost for me to do business and have a profitable business at that. And, I will be the first to tell you....I am absolutely not a cheap photographer. But, I am also not the most expensive photographer either. I had to find my worth, and realize that my time, my work, my experience is worth it. I have said it before and I will 100% say it again, I don't want people to come to me for photos of their kids....I want them come to me for BRYNNE OWEN photos of their kids. That is a huge goal for me. However...here I am getting off track again. Back to the topic at hand....

I myself have spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars over just the last 6 months or so on education. It is so important to further myself, and continue to push my boundaries as a photographer and an artist. And as a result of those workshops I have finally reached a place in my business that I had decided around the end of last year was completely unattainable....but here I am, living it and loving every single minute. And after a long time of contemplation, I have decided to offer some workshops of my own. Simple and easy at first, just to test the waters. So, ready or not here they come. 

Momtography. This will be a great course for Mom's who've bought a shiny new DSLR, and it has ended up collecting dust because they can't figure out how to work it. We will be going though settings, light, composition, and capturing the magic of your kids childhood. We will spend the first part of the day in instruction and then will end the day with a fun shoot so you can practice what you have learned! Professional photographers, or anyone wanting to make it a business won't be accepted for this one, just for the Moms! 

The Photographer's Workshop. This will be a much more in depth workshop for profressional, or want to be professional, photographers that want to really learn to fine tune their craft. We will talk about cameras, equipment, lenses, VISION, marketing, Facebook, just about anything and everything you can think of. You will get a whole day to pick my brain and learn the ins and outs of how I run my business. I will also have a whole editing portion for this workshop, as well as a fun shoot at the end of the day to show off your skills and see how you have improved. 

I am so very excited about these workshops, and getting to spread the love of what I have learned over the years with new and learning Momtogs and Photographers. If you are interested, email me at brynneowenphotography@gmail.com or visit my Facebook page and read the pinned post for more details. 

I can't wait to show you that you don't need fancy locations OR equipment to create magic...all you need is a little vision. Below are pictures taken at the same spot, at the same time, one with my iPhone and one with my camera. Magic is where you make it guys, Let me teach you. 😘

Writing from Neverland...

Y'all. For the last several weeks I have wondered if this is my real life. Have I really been having as much fun shooting as I have? Or was I going to wake up and it was all a dream?

Words cannot really express how I feel these days. Joyous. Excited. Passionate. Enthralled. They all seem to fall short of how I feel. Since the beginning of the year, and the time that I decided to start making my own destiny again....life has been so much brighter. 

"Stop doing things that don't make you happy."

Seriously. It really is that easy. And it is also really that hard. It's hard to turn down money when you know you are trying to pay for your big shiny new house, and your kids extracurricular activities, and all that extra mess. But, at the same time it is absolutely LIBERATING. There is so much power in the word "No." Not a malicious no...a no which really means yes. Yes to spending more time at home. Yes to being able to make ALL practices and games for my kids. Yes to going out of town for a competition and not having to worry about having to miss for a wedding. Yes to being present in my kids lives. My husband's life. Heck, even my dog's life. It's saying YES to being able to go to Sunday lunch at my Grandmother's to spend time with my family and not having to rush off. Sometimes these yes's are so much more important than the one that would be agreeing to do something that I didn't really want to. And, for once in about 5 years...I am finally in such a happy place. I am ridiculously enamored. 

It has and IS somewhat scary making a leap of faith. Taking your business into a whole new realm...deciding to do something that really isn't offered in this neck of the woods. Something different, and out of the box of the photographers in the area. Not better, or worse, just different. The photography community here in East Texas is strong, lots of amazing photographers, lots of beautiful artists. And every single one of them is different in one way or another. But, when you kinda lean in a whole new way....ie darker more moody edits, more colorful and rich than your peers....you worry people will not like what you have to offer. Worried that they will not book, and they will not like your work. Because, as much as we all preach that we don't care what people think about it, we still do...somewhere deep down. I love making art that speaks to me and makes me happy, but there's also an air of worry that people will not understand, or think it's terrible. All my photog friends know what I am talking about when we don't get validation through comments on our stuff! Don't lie, you know you feel the same way! 😂

I used to be a "prop snob". And I hid behind the "I think they cheapen the photograph" and "I think they take away from my subject" excuses for a long time. Well, those excuses are both valid...and they can both happen...however, props done RIGHT can make magic. In the best way. Don't get me wrong, I do still love a simple portrait. I love capturing those. But, I am glad I decided that because some photographers in the world think it's stupid to do themed minis, or use props, or edit like I have been, that I don't HAVE to follow their rules. They are meant to be broken, and sometimes they completely hold you back. Sometimes being crazy is way more fun.

So, I have spent a lot of time photographing my girls, my friends kids, and some people willing to take a chance lately. This time of year is kinda slow, and I am hoping that is the reason people don't want to do my fun Minis 😂 But, I have even ventured out into trying a lens that I said I would NEVER use for portrait photography, and called anyone who did CRAZY. And, I am literally obsessed. It has taken my shooting to the next level. And I am so glad I decided to do something that might not work, and let it work it's magic on me. Cheers to growing and learning as a photographer and an artist for the rest of 2018....I can't wait to see where I am in a year. 

And for making it that far....here are a few of my recent faves with my new fave lens....😍😍👍🏻