Hi!  This is me, Sarah.   The shot on the left is the very first {contemporary portrait} Tobin ever shot.  We had about 45 minutes total for me to do my hair, makeup and the shoot.  He had our 19 month old daughter in a backpack and Sue Bryce's posing guide on the iPad.  The other three shots...well, that 4 months of practice and honing of photography and makeup skills.  What an amazing 4 months it's been!

Finding our calling

So, when it comes down to it Tobin has always been a “portrait” photographer.  When he first got his DSLR, when he would go out and explore and play he would call up actor friends of ours and shoot portraits.  Now, our thinking was, yes portraits are fun but can you pay the rent with that? We thought he also needed to shoot families, weddings, corporate, real estate, products, pets, engagements, babies, bellies, events, headshots… well, you get the picture.  Tobin would shoot anything for anyone who hired him.  Tobin enjoyed shooting all these things for the past 7 years but since I took over the business in September, I was going crazy trying to market us.  Then, at the beginning of March, our whole world changed.

Tobin was selected to go to creativeLive and learn from Sue Bryce (Australia’s Portrait photographer of the year 2011 & 2012, among many other prestigious awards) in person.  I watched from home and at the end of the second day we both knew that THIS is what we are meant to do!  When we were on the phone that night I was so excited because Tobin has a gift of capturing peoples’ essence and if he can get that connection out of a grumpy toddler then getting it out of a willing adult wouldn’t be a problem and after 10 years in the world of esthetics I’ve got the client handling and makeover skills to help our clients transcend the everyday.

He came home and we hit the floor running.  We made a plan of attack, moved all of Tobin’s computers from our office into our bedroom to make room to shoot, and set up 3 days that Tobin’s mom could watch the kidlets.  We did 9 sessions in 3 days and we were amazed.  We could really do this and do this in the space that we have, and people were really enjoying themselves and loving their images.  We were hooked!  Not only were we taking pretty pictures, we were actually changing the way these women were seeing themselves.

Over the last 16 weeks we have shot and learned, shot and learned, shot and learned some more.  We have had over 25 sessions to learn and grow from.  We have dissected each image to see what could be improved and what was right.  We will always be the harshest judges on our images and always strive for better but honestly, the images are only a part of the equation.  The experience that people walk away with is just as important to us as the images we produce.