2021 Part 1: Recap

It’s time for another edition of “I haven’t been keeping up with blogging, so here’s a look back at what we’ve been up to!” lol.

The 2021 Spring season was a ride! I had the opportunity to work with some amazing new clients and a number of repeat clients as well- all while managing a big move 🥴

At the start of the year I made some pretty substantial adjustments to my business on the back end and I’m really happy with how they’ve transformed my workflow. I’ve been able to take on less clients per month, give each of them more attention, and get final photos in their hands sooner!

So let’s take a peek at some of the photos we shot from March through June :)

Today’s recap is formatted a bit differently than previous ones- instead of photos being shared by month, I’m doing a bit more of a color/vibe collage format and sharing reviews as well!

Check it out and let me know what you think!

“Danielle masters lighting and connects with subjects in a way that translates the mood, the personality, love and light through photo. We were so incredibly pleased with our photos and absolutely understand why she is in such high demand!”

-Carmen Gill Bailey

“From the beautiful well laid out planners to the reminders and communication... my experience with DFinney Photography was stellar. I don't know how she does it, but she is able to see the little details and make shifts to capture the best parts of you.”

-Keisha Kells

“Danielle was incredible to work with! We couldn’t be happier with our photos, and look forward to working with her in the future.”

-Caroline Kirk

“Danielle made it look like I was natural in front of the camera, and created images that were my real personality!”

-TaKiyah Wallace

“I've worked with Danielle a few times in the past and have always had an amazing experience. I appreciate having styling assistance and the care with which she chose locations, light, and time to align with the vision for the shoot!”

-Keila Hill-Trawick

“The level of organization, preparation and professionalism is by far one of THE best photography experiences I've had. The fact that I traveled from out of state and everything went so smoothly is still amazing to me! Every interaction, every shot, every final picture exceeded ALL of my expectations!”

-Denise Thomas

“Danielle paid attention to every detail from location, to outfit, and props. Her direction on the day of the shoot made me relaxed and comfortable and it shows in my photos. They were all so beautiful, I had a hard time choosing!”

-Nicole Cole

Super cool right?!

I hope to share more from these amazing sessions over the next few months as I make my way back to sharing on the gram semi-regularly lol.

NOTE: My calendar is currently closed, but it will reopen on Monday, July 26 for September & October! Booking is done via waitlist so you can add your name here if you’re interested in working together.

I hope the next blog post won’t be another monster recap, but we shall seee lol. Thanks for checking it out!

-Danni

Aug-Dec 2020 Recap

Wait. Is this really the first blog post of 2021! And almost exactly 2 months to the day from my last? 🤦🏽‍♀️ I appreciate you hanging in there with me cuz your girl has been a serious slacker with this blog 😩

But that changes today because I finally made time to get the rest of my 2020 recap done! Yes, we are in a new year, but I need to give my 2020 clients the shine they deserve!

In the first (Jan-July) recap, I mentioned that moving forward booking would be done via waitlist. Books hadn’t yet opened for the fall, but when they did?

Listen. I have NEVER done so many shoots in the span of 4 months ever in my life! And in a pandemic no less!

I have noo plans to repeat that, so today’s recap will be the longest I’ve ever done, and the longest there ever will be lol.

AUGUST

August was a combination of rescheduled mentoring sessions, brand sessions, and an editorial for Glamour Magazine! It was a fun month and it gave me an opportunity to catch my breath before the fall busyness began 😅

The last photo was shot by my mentee Samantha!

The last 2 photos were shot by my mentee Tykesha!

SEPTEMBER

Was filled with brand sessions, a mentoring session, and a sweet post-wedding session with my beautiful friend and longtime makeup artist Denyelle! The weather was so finicky this month- a couple of these sessions were literally shot just after it had rained!

The middle photo was shot by my mentee LaTonya!

OCTOBER

I did way too much this month, no two ways about it. My calendar was already at capacity and then I fit a couple sessions in for clients that had super limited availability, but guess who won’t be doing that again 🙋🏽‍♀️ (it’s me lol). October was all about brand & family sessions! I also did my annual session with my nieces and nephew too- check out the carousel to see their growth over the past 4 years 🥰

2020. 2019. 2018. and 2017 with my babies! 🧡

NOVEMBER

The finish line is in view 😅 More brand and family sessions this month! I also just realized that all of my November family sessions were repeat clients, which is super dope!

2020, 2019, and 2018 with Morgan & Maddie 🧡

2020, 2019, and 2017 with the Missmar family! 🧡

DECEMBER

And to round out the year? Just 3 brand and 2 family sessions in December! Funny enough, I RARELY have cancellations, but I had about 3 this month! They were welcomed with open arms though because I was pooped lol.

Did you make it all the way to the end? I told you it was a super long one 😅

Thanks for playing catch up with me, I look forward to sharing some new fun stuff with you soon!

-Danni

A Few of my Fall Favorites

It's been a few months since my last post (late summer and fall had me SWAMPED) but I had to get this blog post up! Last week I shared a few of my favorite brands with my mailing list and the response was great! So I’m sharing the goods with you too :)

One of my long-time clients reached out to inquire about where I get my graphic tees and I realized I’d never formally shared that with you guys! Now, this is absolutely a late post as Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales have passed, but in this case “late” is relative because there is never a bad time to support small businesses!

I'll be sharing a few of my favorite clothing brands, new books from 3 of my clients, and my all time favorite wellness brand. Let’s dive in!

APPAREL

Tees & Hoodies

I’ve been a huge fan of graphic tees for as long as I can remember and in recent years, I've been very fortunate to come across some amazing brands. Check them out below!

Spoonful of Faith

Jena Holiday is an illustrator and the creator of Spoonful of Faith. Each time she drops a new collection I need at LEAST 2 tees lol. Check out the current fall collection here. Note: She closes her shop for a few weeks in December so if you don’t have a chance to order before the shop closes, it will reopen in January.

Be A Good Person 

Be A Good Person is a Denver based brand I first learned about back in 2018 and I have been a fan ever since. Not only do I love the messaging, but I'm continually impressed with the quality of their clothing! No exaggeration, this hoodie is legit the best hoodie I've ever owned. Check out their collection here.

Late Four Brunch

I stumbled across this Philly based brand randomly on IG a couple months ago and fell in love with this 80's baby tee (pictured in the second photo above). This awesome Stevie Wonder sweatshirt has also quickly become a new favorite as well! Check out the tee and sweatshirt collections here.

Dopeciety 

Denisio Truitt is a visual artist and the creator of Dopeciety. I have been a fan since the brand's inception 7+ years ago! Denisio consistently creates beautiful and inspiring designs; it's always exciting to see what she's been up to in the lab when a new collection drops. Check out the current collections here.

BOOKS

2020 Releases

My clients have been BUSY! 3 of my clients released books this year and it's been so awesome to see their work in book form! Learn more about each of them below.

Amber Cabral: Allies & Advocates

First up is actually the latest release! On November 17, Amber's book was released and I'm especially excited about this one because our work together is on the cover! Amber is a diversity & inclusion expert and it's so cool to see her dream of writing a book come to life! 

Kahran & Regis Bethencourt: Glory

The amazingly talented duo behind CreativeSoul Photography released their book in October and it is such a joy to see how well received it's been! Their work is ALWAYS gorgeous and to have it accessible in this beautiful book? I can't even tell you how awesome that is! 

 Dani DiPirro: Grow Through It

Dani is the brilliantly talented illustrator behind Positively Present and her book couldn't have been released at a more perfect time! Through the colorful illustrations, her book aims to help you cultivate a positive mindset no matter what season of life you find yourself in.

WELLNESS

Soaps & More: Herpothecary

Herpothecary is my all time favorite wellness brand! A featured maker in my 2019 Makers Series, Maya hand crafts the BEST products and well… see for yourself!

Maya's last restock of the year was this past week, and this may be one of the big regrets I have about getting this out so late because she sells out FAST! If this is your first introduction to Maya and Herpothecary, please keep her on your radar and be sure to catch the next restock! A few of my favorite artisan soaps are Island Gyal, #MCM, and Ohagi.

This blog ran a bit longer than intended but I'm grateful I had the chance to highlight these awesome brands and creators. I hope you discovered some new favorites!

 I'll follow up soon to share a bit more about what I've been up to these past few months, I have so much to show you!

Talk to you soon,

-Danni

Jan-July 2020 Recap

Man. What a year it has been! I hope you and yours have been doing as best you can given everything that’s going on in the world right now.

It feels almost foreign to be blogging again. This is quite possibly the longest unplanned hiatus I’ve taken from the blog… well, ever! But, I’ve also never lived through a global pandemic so it’s definitely taken some time to find my footing.

 When the pandemic began, it was like the depression switch was flipped for me. And even though I had been working so hard at trying to get myself together, I just couldn't get out of the funk! That was really tough to manage and my “managing” initially involved a lot of sleeping. Eventually I was able to start implementing a few more healthy coping mechanisms- eating better, taking my supplements, getting some kind of physical activity in, prayer, bible reading, etc. And although those things are helpful, they can take a lot of energy, so I had very little left to be present online and well, that’s where everything is taking place these days!

 A few weeks ago I tiptoed back onto social media and have been sharing some photos from recent sessions... and that actually leads me to today’s post!

Since I haven’t been able to share much over these past 6+ months, I wanted to do a recap that highlights the amazing folks I’ve had the honor of working with this year! So let’s go month by month, shall, we?

January

The year got off to an intentionally slow start. I was doing a lot of planning and preparing for things that ultimately didn’t happen as they were supposed to 🙃 but I did have the pleasure of photographing a couple sessions this month- engagement photos for my little brother Nahshon, and some updated photos for the amazingly talented Nicole Crowder- who was just featured in Better Homes & Garden’s magazine this month!

February

This was the busiest February I’ve had in all of my 10+ years of shooting. It was an honor to work with so many beautiful black women! Most of the sessions this month were brand and headshot photos, and we shot what we now know was our last Mini Headshot Special 😭 We definitely made it count though!

March

Before everything shut down, I’d only managed to photograph a handful of brand sessions and one artist session with Aliana Grace Bailey. I was so inspired by my clients this month and really looking forward to the additional clients I had scheduled for the Spring! That made the sudden stoppage of everything a bit more difficult to manage 😓

April

Was spent at home! After letting myself feel sad (for longer than I would have liked lol), I started working on a project that I hope to be able to share soon! I also created the Zoom Guide this month, but then I went MIA so I didn’t promote it- at all lol.

May

As things started to (prematurely) open back up across the country, I tried to figure out what working safely would look like for me and my makeup artists. Additionally, I stayed in touch with my rescheduled clients keeping them abreast of things and towards the end of the month, was able to safely shoot a couple of those rescheduled sessions.

June

I did way too much in June, let me just tell you that 😩 I had 2 rescheduled sessions at home, then traveled to Atlanta to photograph the 8 clients I was originally scheduled to to work with in April. Now that may not sound like a lot, but to accommodate all of the Atlanta sessions, I had to double-up, and on one day triple-up on sessions! Thankfully all of the photos turned out great, but the last hurdle I had to overcome this month, was my 128gb memory card being corrupted 😣 It had 2k+ photos on it from 5 different sessions! The night it happened, I sobbed myself to sleep. Thankfully my dad was able to help me find recovery software (EaseUS) so I could pull the images, but man. What a physically and emotionally exhausting trip that was!

July

After such an intense month, July was a WELCOMED slow down. Only 3 sessions this month 😅 A couple brand sessions and one grad session!

August is still in progress so I’ll share what we’ve been up to this month in a future post :)

So much has changed over these past few months and even though folks are out and about more than ever, the pandemic has not gone away. It’s actively gotten worse here in the US, and it’s difficult at times trying to manage my anxiety with everything that’s going on. ⠀
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Too many times I’ve been nervous thinking is this covid? or allergies? or stress? or some other unrelated issue but that has covid-esque symptoms 😭 This is not going to be a thing that’s over quickly, so I’ve really been reevaluating how I do things and how I want to do things in the future.

That being said, the one thing I have adjusted so far is the booking process. The majority of the sessions I’ve shot over the past few months have been with clients who were already on the calendar, but moving forward the booking process will be done via waitlist and the calendar will only available for booking 2 months at a time.

Yep! So if you’re interested in working together, you might want to add your name to the waitlist!

Booking for September and October will open tomorrow (Monday, August 17) to those on the waitlist.

This post is much longer than I intended it to be, but I hope it brought a smile to your face to take a look back at the amazing clients I’ve had the privilege of working with so far this year!

What’s that saying- thank goodness we don’t look like what we’ve been through? That’s exactly how I feel when I look at these beautiful faces. 2020 has been a tough year for all of us, but I’m grateful that I get to be apart of (and capture) even just a few joyful moments with my clients and I can’t wait to do the same for you in the coming months 🧡

-Danni

Develop Your Creative Eye. How?

A few months ago I was asked: “What do you think is the most important thing to have as a photographer- equipment, skills, or editing?” In reference to what they should invest in as a new photographer.

My response? None of those things. You can have the best equipment, the skill to take a technically sound photo, know how to edit it, and still be a meh photographer. The “glue” that pulls all of those things together is your creative eye. That’s what’s most important to develop! So I thought this would be a great topic to tackle on the blog.

One thing before I dive in- just as our literal eyes are unique, each of our creative eyes are as well! There’s no one size fits all approach to developing it, but there are certain elements that you can incorporate if you feel like you don’t know where to begin OR if you feel like you’ve lost inspiration with your work.

Here are a few things I’ve personally found helpful to develop creatively:

Pay attention to what attracts your eye in every day life

Is it an interesting print on a dress, the way the light shines through leaves, the bright green of freshly cut grass, the contrast of a bright door against a neutral wall, the texture of a wood panel, the symmetry of a stairway between two buildings, the unexpected color harmony of a food truck and the patrons in line...

Each of those very different things have one thing in common- you’ll notice them if they catch your eye. But WHY they catch your eye is important.

If you aren't already in the habit of doing so, take a mental (or literal) note each time your attention is drawn to something. This will help you identify what inspires you! You may find that you’re consistently drawn to certain things, and this will help give you direction when it’s time for you to pick up your camera!

Are you consistently drawn to symmetry? You may want to look for locations that will allow you to incorporate symmetrical framing into your photos. Love natural textures? You may find your preference is for more green and rustic locations as opposed to the city. Love colorful prints? You may want to encourage your clients not to be afraid of wearing prints and/or find colorful murals to incorporate into your photos!

Seems simple enough, right? 

In writing, yes. In practice, not always lol. That's why the next step is so important:

Practice regularly

When you practice, you have a chance to see if you’re moved by those same elements you observed elsewhere, in your photos! That can help you to either build on or get rid of them.

What do I mean by that? I’ll use a personal example this time.

I loveee evening light. The way the sun shines through everything and creates a beautiful glow… it’s just so yummy! But after shooting in the evening light for some time, I realized that it’s something I enjoy more IRL, and not always in my photography. That helped me see that it’s not something I need to incorporate in my work!

Once you get in the habit of practicing regularly, you’ll see what truly moves you and what you’ll want to do more of vs what you may not want to do at all.

Pretty cool right? This blog post was actually last week’s email to the Photographers List! And this week I’ll be sharing Part 2 of this series because I have a bit more to share on the topic. Interested in receiving it? Join the list!

Let me know what you thought of today's post and if there's anything specific you're interested in learning more about- I'm all ears! I have a list of topics that I'm happy to add to :)

-Danni