One of my favorite things about the service industry is finding a group of like-minded people who are as eager to support you as you are to support them! #communityovercompetition

I’m grateful for the couple of photographer friends I’ve gotten to connect with over the years.

Another one of my favorite things? Service Swapping. I’m not speaking for all service based businesses, but I love being able to swap services with other individuals. I have a local friend (LowCountry Pearl) who makes me crafty things like cups and shirts in exchange for an annual picture session. Other possibilities could be a tax person who will do your taxes for an annual session, or a HMUA in exchange for images they can use on their website.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that the value of the trade and what you’re getting out of it is similar. Whitney and I have been working with each other for the past year doing each other’s branding pictures every couple of months. It helps to create fresh content on our feed and helps us to “show up” virtually more often without seeing the same headshot used over and over.

I recently had a couple’s sunrise session done with Whitney at Hunting Island State Park and YOU GUYS. She killed it. We killed it. The pictures were fiiireeeee (mostly because we were spontaneous and got in the water, but still. Girl’s got skills!).

 

I had been planning this session in my head for a while, and it had to be rescheduled a couple of times because of our hectic schedules, but we finally got it. My dress was from Baltic Born (of course) and I went with the Cozette White Lace. I didn’t take my own advice of making nail appointments in advance so I had to convince my fave nail girl to squeeze me in right before closing the night before our session ??‍♀️

As I was showering the night before, I was filled with giddy excitement. I think it was good for me to experience this because it gave me an idea what you guys feel like before your sessions with me! My dress was fresh out of the dryer so it wouldn’t have any wrinkles, and I was heading to bed at a decent hour since we were doing a sunrise session. 

You might be surprised, but Mat looooves when we get pictures done because he has an excuse to touch me and be close to me. His love language is physical touch and that is the opposite of what mine is. I try to be understanding, I really do, but it’s hard. Whitney was so good about giving us prompts that got us super close together.

When I’m photographing a couple, I have my run down of prompts that I do but everything goes out the window when I’m the one in front of the camera. It’s like amnesia hits me or something. No worries though, Whit had our backs and got us in a groove.

We had so much fun getting in the water (can you tell). I even remembered a change of clothes for afterwards! And thank the lawdddd there were bathrooms with a pretty big changing area – only downfall is that I forgot towels – oops ?.  We made due though and I just jumped around a little bit to dry off.

Overall the session was a win, and we had so much fun! It was totally worth the extra early wake up and the extra long drive out to Hunting Island State Park. Especially since we got Taco Bell breakfast on the way home.

If you want to be next, let a sista know!

 

xoxo, elle