Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessie and Dallin Jackson.
Jessie and Dallin, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Hi, thank you so much for asking us to participate in this interview. Since high school, Jessie has been interested in photography. She took photography classes when she was in school and loved to be creative with point-and-shoot cameras. After we met while going to Utah State University, Jessie would take photos for fun of various things and started posting them on her Facebook and even submitted a few photos to Utah State’s newspaper for a photo contest and won!
About 11 years ago, right before we were married, our wedding photographer sent Jessie an email randomly. He told her how impressed he was with her personality and how perfect it was for wedding photography. Along with that, he told her how much he liked the work she did (we assumed he saw the work he saw on Facebook that she would post), and although it wasn’t technically there, he could teach her and polish her skills. The important thing was that her personality (which he couldn’t teach) was perfect and he wanted her to join his wedding photography team!
Jessie was so excited because this was a dream that she had for a long time – to be a wedding photographer! She emailed back our wedding photographer, accepting his offer to be a part of his team! Not long after, we received an email back from him that started with… “OOPS! I emailed the wrong Jessie! I’m so sorry!” However, he said that he didn’t believe in accidents, restated that Jessie DID have the perfect personality for wedding photography, and then told Jessie to buy a DSLR and that he’d love to see the photos she took. Eventually, after sending him a few sessions and weddings, he made Jessie a part of his team.
After about 5 years, Jessie was teaching middle school and was pregnant with our first child. She wanted to spend more time with our new baby, so she decided to quit her teaching job, and we formed our own wedding photography business together. The two of us spent many nights devouring photography and business education, have been a wedding photography team ever since.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
One of the difficulties we continue to struggle with is having a good balance with working and family life. Wedding season is mostly in the summer, which is when the rest of the world takes vacations. Since both of us are in this business together, it can be difficult for us to be away from our son when we see our neighbors participate in summer activities that we have little time for. It’s a constant struggle that we work with and we make sure that we set aside time to go and do things as a family so that the time doesn’t get pushed aside.
As with most businesses, we didn’t get a lot of business at first. It has taken many years of learning from other photographers and business owners to get to the point that we are at now. During this time, we really struggled to know what kind of photographers we wanted to be, along with what our message was.
In 2018, Jessie’s uncle died in a tragic car accident. She was very close to her uncle; he was almost more like a brother than an uncle. This made mortality very real to both of us and helped us to see how important photography is to help us remember not only loved ones but also everyday moments that can be forgotten about if they are not captured and used purposefully.
In 2019, Jessie was also diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. Although this disease has not ever put her life in danger to the point where we’ve feared for her life, it still reinforced how grateful we need to be for the little moments and the need to remember them during more difficult times.
Although these events seemed to be ones that happened to Jessie, both greatly shaped our values, as well as our photography business. Similar to health and family relationships, sometimes marriage can be difficult as we deal with curveballs that life will throw at us. Without something to remind us of good times, it can be hard to make it through the difficult experiences.
We have come to believe that photography can be used to serve as a constant reminder of the good in our lives, even when we are not expecting it. If we surround ourselves with photographs of positive emotional moments, it can change our day, and eventually influence the course of our lives. We can remember the reason why we got married in the first place, and with those constant reminders, it can help strengthen our relationships through the good and the bad.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
One thing that we’ve emphasized is having the knowledge to add flash to our photography to bring an additional artistic element. Many of our couples book us because of our creativity with lighting and flash, as well as our focus on bringing emotional elements into the photos we take. Although we don’t use flash in every photo, we do find ways to bring out certain elements in photos when appropriate.
Because we believe photos can serve as a reminder to memories and feelings of specific moments, we do everything we can to bring emotion into the photos we take. Doing this further helps those feelings resurface whenever our couples look at their photos. We’ve found ways to make photos be a captured moment of real emotion rather than just “now smile at the camera!” This has had a profound impact on our couples and their families.
Another focus of ours that is unique to our couples is a Reveal Session celebration after the wedding day! The first time our couples will see the photos from their wedding is when they walk through the entryway to our home and see their wedding photos printed up on our wall. We use this Reveal Session to help our couples relive the emotions and love from their wedding day, which in turn can lead to further strengthening their relationship.
To us, the importance of using photographs to strengthen relationships is key. But after the wedding day, we wondered if there was a way that we could continue to stay connected with our couples. Recently we’ve started doing JD Couple exclusive group date nights, where our couples have the chance to do things that are maybe a little unique and different from your average night out. We’ve started doing cooking class date nights with our couples, and plan on doing more unique ones in the coming months and years. But more important than the actual type of activity that we plan, is that our couples and us have the opportunity to get out and do something together to strengthen our relationships and individual marriages.
Any big plans?
We are continuing to find ways to grow our community of couples and friends. We continue to plan more unique date nights to allow couples to learn more about their spouse in ways that they may have never had the chance to. We also want to give our couples the chance to meet each other and expand the friendships that they have.
Another focus that we are working on is to be more involved with the community. Although we don’t have an official involvement with anything specific yet, we have a few opportunities that we hope to use to better our community and our relationships with other wedding professionals. We fully believe in the motto that a rising tide lifts all boats and that one person can make an impact on the life of others.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jessieanddallin.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/jessieanddallin
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/jessieanddallin
Image Credits
Kali Poulsen
Marlies Hartmann T
Jessie and Dallin
