I’ve got some life and business updates on tap for today. I’ve been trying to decide how much I want to share because I know that once I say something, I’ll feel duty-bound to follow through… and follow-through isn’t one of my strong suits 🤪 I’m also going to pepper through some of my favorite images that Teresa of TCJ Design took of me and my daughters this past August – since this post is about me, it makes sense that the images should be me too, right?
Back in September of last year, I made the decision to introduce some more changes to my photography business. When I started back in 2017, I photographed anything that moved. Families, babies, children, graduating seniors, births, I even photographed the *one* and only wedding that I’ll ever do. And this business model worked for me for a time. Until it didn’t.
Once I left my nursing job, where I worked with freshly postpartum moms and their newborn babies, I decided to channel my passion for that stage of life into my photography business so I gradually stopped accepting new family clients and focused on maternity, newborn, fresh 48, sitter, and cake smash photography clients. This worked for me for a longer time. Until it didn’t.
As my children have gotten older, I have tailored my photography business to work around their needs. We’re a homeschool family so my kiddos’ increasing independence enabled me to photograph morning (typically baby) sessions while they were doing school. Afternoon/evening (typically maternity) sessions happened when school was over, and my parents live with us so there was always an adult around supervising when I needed to leave for a session. And still, the way I did things worked for *us*. Until it didn’t.
Now I have a high schooler and two middle schoolers. As the kids age and evolve, so too do their interests, meaning more people need to be in more places at more times during the week. You should’ve seen me last spring, running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Thankfully, my husband’s job is fairly flexible so he was able to do a lot of the running around for me when we needed to tag-team, but still… things felt over-scheduled and stressful a lot of the spring.
Which leads me to the life and business updates. The life update is pretty simple: it encompass my growing chicks and all their cool interests that are helping them develop into the really neat people that they are becoming. The business updates include a further funneling of my offerings so that I can better manage all the things which leads me back to the sentence I started above…
In September of last year, I made an Instagram announcement that, effective immediately, I would no longer be accepting maternity sessions except on a case-by-case basis – and those sessions would either be at a studio local to me or the Brookside Conservatory. Considering that the conservatory is only open for sessions from November through March, it was already a narrow offering; I later learned that the studio I was planning to use is no longer available for rent so I tabled that decision-making for a time.
Baby sessions are going to be transitioned to studio-only sessions except for Fresh 48s which happen in the hospital and lifestyle newborns which happen in the client home. There will be no more outdoor sessions. Outdoor sessions rely on good weather and require me to be gone from the house for more hours than I can commit to at this stage of life. In the studio, the weather is always perfect and the time frame for sessions is relatively easy to predict and plan for.
However, my studio is not large and it is really only best for babies. I wrestled with this knowledge because I really do love shooting maternity sessions but I had basically come to the determination that maternity would not be an offering for the time being… I was going to have to be satisfied with these life and business updates.
Isn’t it funny how things work, though? I’ve been feeling conflicted about my decision because so many of my inquiries are for maternity + newborn. By saying no to maternity, I’d likely be turning away at least half of my potential clientele since people often book the two sessions with the same photographer. This did not feel good to me but, again, I didn’t really see a way around it and I was trying to make myself okay with something that did not feel ok.
I’m a praying person and I’ve been quietly saying to God throughout this process, “I trust you. Whatever is supposed to happen, let it be.” I’m also an Instagram person 🤣 and what started to trickle into my algorithm were these gorgeous, simple, studio maternity images. Picture all white, bright, with draping fabric, simple posing, clinging dresses made with discretely translucent material (similar to my dress in these images!) – and my mind opened to the possibilities.
This is the part that I’m afraid to speak too loudly into the Universe… because I have done absolutely nothing to make any of this happen. But through the months since September, while I’ve been pondering exactly what things are going to look like and realizing that offering newborn photos without offering maternity photos isn’t really going to work, I have been led to this place.
These life and business updates require the handy help of my husband so I’ll need to work within his schedule to make the changes to the studio that are needed to bring this fledgling vision to life. Maternity sessions themselves will look way different from how they’ve looked in the past. The studio is SMALL. I may not be able to accommodate big siblings due to the size constraints and the fact that there won’t be much to entertain wiggly toddlers. My maternity offerings may need to be limited to first time parents *unless* a trusted adult can come along to corral the little(s) while I’m working with their parents. Sessions will be much shorter and simpler. These are all the thoughts rolling around in my brain and yet…
I’m excited by the possibilities. I’m dreaming of soft mood music and visions coming to life. I’m imagining tender posing that brings the beauty of parenthood from an artist’s brain onto the walls of a client’s home in the form of heirloom products. I’m picturing thrilled clients crying happy tears of joy that these are their memories.
These are my life and business updates.
Now I just gotta make it happen 🤪
Liz Viernes Photography is based near Ellicott City, MD, and specializes in maternity, fresh 48, posed and lifestyle newborns and first year milestone portraits.
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