Today we’d like to introduce you to Mallory Hubbard.
Hi Mallory, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My name is Mallory, owner of Mallory Lynne Photography. I always start by sharing that I am a mother to five beautiful children, and this is important because they inspired my business and continue to inspire my decisions every day. While I’ve always been creatively driven, photography hadn’t been an outlet for that passion until I became a mother.
In 2015, as a young mother with two small boys and newborn twins, I opened my first (very) small shop on Etsy, selling through their platform and a few other online websites, soon realizing I would need product and branding photos. Always being someone who prided herself on being self-taught and independent, I ordered my first DSLR camera- a t3i Canon Rebel. It came bundled with a basic kit lens and a fancy camera strap, and I figured I’d pull it off the shelf for my business needs and that would be the end of it.
That wasn’t the case. Almost immediately, I started photographing every little moment of my children’s lives, anticipating their candid laughter and honest emotions, desperately wanting to save every second of it. This evolved into me offering the same storytelling to close family, and finally braving the very “official” business of providing my services to complete strangers.
Today, I’m a busy family photographer, in large part because I can directly relate to and deeply appreciate the chaos and authenticity that families share. More so though, I’m a storyteller. Be it families or couples; celebrations or losses; building a life with someone new or celebrating a life well-lived; it’s the story I seek.
No posing, no forced smiles or blank stares. Just asking you to be yourself and let me help to document your time, your favorite people, and your story. It’s the knowing that I’ve taken photographs that will forever exist in the world, giving a face to names and cementing a chapter or two of someone’s life into portraits, that makes this job so incredibly special to me.
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?
The challenges really do come in waves, but they are part of the process nonetheless. I’ve learned to embrace them and address them, first thing.
Everybody learns differently, but for me personally, I learn best when I do something completely wrong, backward, or take the long way round. I could be challenged by something technically with my camera, for example, and it isn’t until I’ve had the painful lesson of shooting a session (earlier in my business) without checking the images as I went, only to arrive home to upload the camera card and find dozens and dozens of blown out, overexposed images that sadly couldn’t be saved.
If it isn’t a technical challenge, it’ll be marketing. If not marketing, it’ll be social media. If not social media, it’ll be business finances. Best to accept that the struggle is really a stride; a stride in a new direction or a better decision the next time I face this same scenario. As Marie Forleo says, “everything is figure-out-able”.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a Family Photographer and Videographer, specializing in storytelling through emotive and narrative imagery that is unposed, nontraditional, and honest.
My personal style is bold and cinematic, with an editorial, filmy feel. I feel this sets me apart from the more traditional “bright and airy”, Christmas card photographer. I know parents, especially grandparents, look forward to those milestone or progress photos each year, and I always promise to add one or two of those into our time together; however, something I feel that makes me and my sessions different is that we achieve those same milestone images but with intention and feeling too!
We aren’t going to want to look back at our life’s memories and just have a stack of photographs with everyone in one pose or with one forced smile. We want to see the truth and be seen in our truth.
Any big plans?
Adding videography to my services this year has been thrilling – and again, wonderfully scary too! Even before I started documenting families through photographs, I always had a strong, instinctive feeling to pave the path for family films. Both services offer a powerful, unique purpose.
Photographs can be printed and carried with you anywhere, allowing you to immediately return to a favorite memory or find reassurance in the face of someone you love; and equally through film, hearing the sounds of your child’s laughter or seeing the moment in motion, preserving a memory otherwise lost to time and aging, is powerful.
Both a return ticket to the people and places that matter most.
Contact Info:
- Email: mallorylynnephoto@gmail.com
- Website: mallorylynne.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mallorylynnephotography/
