Today we’d like to introduce you to Brittani Borden.
Brittani, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
As a child my family was always taking photographs and making scrapbooks, inspiring my initial interest in photography, but unfortunately, I did not have a digital camera of my own until around 2013. Throughout high school, I took a few photography classes and was able to work in the darkroom and with a pinhole camera that I created out of an old tea tin, and my passion began to flourish.
My first camera was on the back of my Blackberry, and even though the quality was very low, I was photographing nature every chance that I had with my new camera phone. In 2015, I began college at Loyola University Maryland and needed a camera for a photography course I had taken my first semester. My mother had an old digital Nikon with a flash attachment, and I began photographing everything from nature, to events, and even campus parties and hangouts with my friends. This is when I first created my photography Instagram account, formerly named Borden Photography.
At the beginning of 2016, a few friends asked me to take their graduation photos and I quite nervously agreed for a couple of bucks since I had not done much more than the occasional headshot for a friend. By 2017, I changed my IG to Borden Media, and started to approach my hobby as a business, booking more graduation and headshot sessions as well as traveling to expand my work with nature and landscape photography.
Fast forward to my senior year in 2019, I had widely expanded my services and was becoming a well-known photographer on campus. Clubs, students I had not met, departments, and more were booking my services, and most if not all of my clients were sourced from IG and word of mouth. At the beginning of the year, I was contacted by the Marketing and Communications department and offered a photography position with the university. My work ended up being posted on their website, socials, and even published in their magazine that was sent out to students and employees, and other students were contacting me to write articles about my business. Graduation photography remained my largest service, with 50 sessions booked in May & April of 2019 on top of headshot, event, and style sessions I had booked those months.
Since 2019, graduation sessions remain my largest booked service, and I have branched out into engagement and wedding photography as well. In 2020, COVID-19 provided challenges, but since my sessions are mainly outdoors, I was able to adapt and break my previous record of 50 graduation sessions a year and was shooting nonstop on weekends from early summer to the end of fall.
In July of 2021, I created my first virtual gallery, and hosted an event on the app Clubhouse discussing the works and advertising sales of the pieces in the show, and was successfully able to sell a number of my works and merchandise.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
In the beginning, I struggled a lot with my experience, as I did not feel I knew photography well enough to charge for services and that without a Fine Arts education I would not be taken seriously by my peers and the art world. Developing my website, creating ads and a marketing plan, and establishing myself as a professional photographer was not easy and required much dedication and learning to overcome as I had not done any of these things before.
In addition, I was working while at Loyola, managing my business and taking classes so I struggled with taking out time for my well-being and overall mental health, leading to burnout.
Finally, COVID-19 created a scheduling and rescheduling nightmare, as I had started scheduling shoots in December for February and March, which was when COVID ramped up. Since I typically only shoot in March, April, and sometimes July for graduation photos, the mid-summer heat provided me with physical challenges I hadn’t previously experienced, where one day I had so many shoots back to back I almost fainted and had to rethink mid-summer scheduling going forward.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I specialize in natural light photography, most known for my graduation and headshot photography, with my nature and landscape work coming in at a close third. I am most proud of my graduation and landscape photography, as my grad work highlights my ability to work with a singular space repeatedly to create unique and beautiful results, and my landscape work portrays my ability to apply knowledge of line, shape, and other photographic elements for aesthetic and creative purposes.
I would argue that my use of color and contrast sets me apart from other photographers, as my work seeks to capture and emphasize the warmth and vibrance each individual brings to a session through the use of natural light and editing techniques.
What’s next?
I plan to develop another virtual gallery and market heavier towards wedding and engagement photography. My long-term goal is to have my works displayed and for sale in a gallery.
Pricing:
- Sessions start at $75/ hour and include all unedited photos, edited photos, and the 1-hour session.
Contact Info:
- Email: bordenmediaservices@gmail.com
- Website: https://borden.media/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bordenmedia/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/bordenmedia/
- Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/bordenmedia?lang=en
Image Credits
Borden Media
