Every once in a while, a commercial photography client becomes part of your life in a way you never expected.
My relationship with Flourish Beauty Studio started with a referral.
Jon Allen of Advantage Internet Marketing connected me with owner Jenni and her team as they were creating the imagery for Flourish’s beautiful new website.
At the time, I was increasingly pregnant with Lyra.
And somehow, pregnant photographer + a full day on my feet + an entire salon full of people to photograph turned into one of the most glorious commercial shoots.
Maybe I should have realized then that this place was going to stick around in my life.
A Full Day of Photography at Flourish
This wasn’t a quick headshot session.
We spent the day creating a complete collection of custom photography that could help prospective clients actually experience Flourish before ever walking through the door.
The people.
The space.
The services.
The details.
The interactions.
The personalities behind the business.
We created professional portraits and environmental imagery, photographed the team at work, and built a library with enough variety to support a full website rather than simply filling one About page.
And the whole day just felt… good.
Warm. Creative. Collaborative.
Very Flourish.
That’s something that’s difficult to fake in commercial photography.
You can hire models. You can stage interactions. You can arrange the perfect composition.
But when a team genuinely enjoys one another and people feel comfortable in their environment?
You can see it.
A Website Filled With Their Own People
Today, one of my favorite things about visiting the Flourish Beauty Studio website is seeing so many of those photographs actually doing their jobs.
That’s always the payoff for me.
The photographs don’t live in a gallery somewhere gathering digital dust.
They’re part of the business.
They’re introducing the team.
They’re creating the feeling of the salon.
They’re helping prospective clients imagine themselves there.
And yes, Flourish naturally supplements our photography with imagery we didn’t create that day—stock photographs and before-and-after examples serve their own purposes.
That’s exactly how a good commercial image library should work.
Custom photography doesn’t necessarily have to provide every single image a business will ever need.
It should provide the photographs that can’t be replaced by stock.
Your people.
Your space.
Your personality.
Your client experience.
The things that make your business yours.
And Then I Became the Client
Here’s where this commercial photography story took a turn I didn’t necessarily expect.
After spending a full day photographing Flourish, I trusted them with my own hair.
And then I kept coming back.
Over the next year, my life brought an enormous amount of change—grief, stress, growth, and a whole lot of figuring out who I was on the other side of it.
And every so often, I got to sit down in a chair at Flourish and let somebody else take care of me for a little while.
There is something pretty wonderful about that.
Jenni and I have talked about so many of the things we have in common. She helped me embrace choices that feel like me—including honoring my natural grays rather than treating them as something that needs to disappear.
Nic has taken such thoughtful care with communication and making sure everything is set before an appointment.
The entire team has always been warm and welcoming.
And then there’s the hair washing.
Guys.
THE HAIR WASHING.
Why is this not a standalone service?
Forget the haircut. Forget the color. I would like to book three consecutive hours of somebody washing my hair and massaging my scalp, please and thank you.
It’s glorious. And soothing.
And for someone who spends a great deal of her life taking care of other people, there’s something especially lovely about sitting still and letting someone take care of you.
Photographing the Feeling of a Business
Having now experienced Flourish from both sides gives me a different appreciation for those photographs we created together.
First, I experienced the salon as their photographer.
I watched the team interact. I paid attention to the environment. I looked for the details that would communicate warmth, expertise, creativity, and personality.
Then I became the person sitting in the chair.
And it turns out that what I saw through my camera was real.
The warmth is real.
The care is real.
The welcome is real.
That’s what I ultimately want photographs like these to accomplish.
Someone can look at a picture of a stylist working with a client and understand what is happening.
But a great branding photograph should communicate something more:
What might it feel like to be there?
That’s a much harder thing to photograph.
And a much more valuable one.
From a Referral to Something More
I owe a huge thank-you to Jon Allen of Advantage Internet Marketing for making the original introduction.
At the time, it was a business referral.
Photographer, meet salon.
Salon, meet photographer.
Simple enough.
But that one connection turned into a full-day commercial photography project, a gorgeous website filled with images I’m still proud to see in use, a client relationship I treasure—and eventually a place and a group of people I trusted to care for me during a pretty transformative chapter of my own life.
You never quite know where one introduction will lead.
Jenni, Nic, and the entire Flourish team: thank you for trusting me with your business.
And then, unexpectedly, for creating a space where I felt comfortable trusting you with a little piece of me, too.
I’m very glad Jon introduced us.
And I’ll happily come photograph you again anytime.
Especially if someone washes my hair afterward.
