When Lauren Hillary photographs her clients, she often surprises them with her fun and natural attitude towards their photoshoot. For Lauren, however, it’s the only way to get amazing images. Her approach is best described as natural and relaxed with a fashion flare. In her own words, Lauren’s goal is “to create images which record those human moments that make the connection to life, love, and family.”
 Lauren Hillary’s style  has a distinctive and classic, artistic and photojournalistic look which captures the true emotions and personalities of her clients.

In 2006 Lauren partnered with talented photographer Sara France and together they created GoBee CF card holders, which is featured this month in Olive’s Monthly Contest!!  GoBEE’s goal is to create a stylish solution to keep your CF cards protected and accessible at all times, while expressing your personality and be fun to wear!  Can you do all that in a card holder?  Check it out and see!   This is a fun shot by Kenny Kim of the dynamic duo in action at last year’s PartnerCon event! 

In addition to being a featured photographer on Adobe’s website, Lauren’s work has been published worldwide and has graced the pages of Grace Ormonde’s Wedding Style, Susie Coelho’s new book “Style Your Dream Wedding”, Inside Weddings, The Bride and Bloom, Modern Bride, Brides southern California, Brides New Jersey, The Knot Weddings Southern California and Texas, Studio Photography and Design and Greersoc.com. She is currently the resident editorial photographer for The Bride and Bloom Magazine in Los Angeles and was just named as one of the Top 5 photographers in orange County by Fox 11 in Los Angeles.

I was thrilled to read what Lauren had to say about Learning, Growing, and Sharing… she talks about the power of social networking, and recommends that everyone take advantage of some of the conferences out there as well as connecting with other photographers in community…. In Lauren’s words:
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Learn:
Something I continually want to get better at and learn how to balance is learning how to balance my personal and work life. I find the need to set boundaries in work and personal life and create concrete work and play times in this flexible career.

Business 101 is so important to learn and master even in the most creative of fields. I wish I had taken some small business courses to be an expert on things like accounting, sales tax, banking and file management. I am such an artist I have a tough time setting aside time for these very important parts of running your own successful business.

Grow:
The last five years have been all about growth in every part of my business and personal life. My business has become well know in my area and we get more and more great opportunities every year. In the last three years I have become a resident editorial photographer for The Bride and Bloom magazine here in los Angeles and also have been recognized and supported by Adobe as a photographer. This last year photography has taken me me all over the world which has been an amazing adventure. The world is getting smaller and smaller every day and it has really had an amazing impact on my photography business.

These last few years I also started GO|BEE Bags , a company dedicated to designing fashionable and functional camera gear for professional photographers. GO|BEE has opened my eyes to a whole different side of the photography industry and challenges me every day in being a designer, drumming up new business and thinking of new creative ways of marketing.

I also just started to embrace the power of social media especially Twitter and Facebook.  This is one of our most powerful self marketing tools available out there and its totally free.

Share:
I love thinking of new ways to help and challenge this industry. For me I want to help photographers look and feel their best on a job, while being able to do that job in the best way possible.

That is why I started GO|BEE. Our products are Fashionable, professional and functional. I believe it is extremely important to create communities with our photography peers and continually share with each other to elevate this profession and educate our clients on why photography is so important in documenting the lifes of others.

I think growing and learning and sharing is essential in any business but especially photography, and I constantly try to reinvent myself and try to do everything a bit different than the rest of the pack. A great place to learn and grow on annual basis is Pictage’s annual Partner Conference and of course WPPI in Vegas. You really can’t find a more talented group of teachers and mentors in one place.

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Thank you Lauren for sharing!! Check out some of her work below, I love the way Lauren sees the world. Lauren brings fashion flare to her pregnancy shoots! Leave a comment for her and thanks for reading!