Vendor Spotlight: The Photography Co
We had the pleasure of sitting down and chatting with the wonderful, Owen Sound based, photography duo Megan & Chris of The Photography Co. Today we are sharing some highlights from that fun interview! From their journey to becoming photographers to pets to travel and some of their favourite spots to explore in the Georgian Bay area, read on to learn more about Megan & Chris!
So you both originally had other career aspirations before becoming photographers. Chris, you mentioned that you trained and got your pilot’s license. Do you fly anymore?
Chris: No, not as much anymore. I used to have aspirations to be a professional pilot when I was in high school and that was my dream career. Mainly because I was passionate about flying. Then once you dive deeper into the business side of it and the politics side it became less of a passion and more of a job and I realized it wasn’t for me. I still completed it and came away with a degree in technology so still able to use the knowledge that I gained from going to school and find that there are a lot of great applications to my degree with what we do currently.
Megan, before you decided on pursuing an education in photography, you said you thought about being a vet tech, tell us more about what interested you in that career path at the time.
Megan: I love animals and I actually worked in a vet clinic, taking care of the animals like taking dogs for walks and stuff. I remember taking a photography class in high school and it was awesome. I always had my film camera and was taking pictures of everything, even when I was a kid. My birthday money was spent on little disposable cameras, I was just fascinated with it. At the time I didn’t look at it as a potential job so my goal was to become a vet tech. Then I started to see photography as more of a job and started looking up colleges and Seneca came up. I looked at their courses and thought it looked good so I went and took it and it was fun!
Chris, were you interested in photography as well before you met Megan?
Chris: Yeah, so my first camera was gifted to me by my grandparents and I spent a couple years in South East Asia and documented my time over there with a lot of photos so that was my start to photography.
I think the moral of the story is that neither of us really saw photography as a career, it was more of a hobby or a passion, whatever you want to call it. Once we discovered that it is possible to make it a business and make a living from it, we just really enjoy what we do. I mean, who wouldn’t want to go to a beautiful party every weekend? Enjoy amazing food and great people, it’s just a huge opportunity that we couldn’t pass up. To take a passion that we both have and make a business out of it.
The three words you used to describe your photography and your business were fun, natural and innovative. Tell us a bit more about how you are innovative in your work?
Chris: I would say that other than just posing people, our strategy has always been to create a moment and capture natural reactions. I think that’s where we are continuing to innovate is with our ways of getting people to interact with us as a photographer rather than just simply following our instruction. So that’s where we’re continuing to innovate and come up with new ideas all the time to do that. When you think of the word innovate, you think of research & development and technology and stuff like that but for us it’s interacting with people.
Can you give us any examples?
Chris: One of my favourite shoots was an engagement shoot with a couple in Ajax and the pictures, when I look back on them, I think to myself, that’s what we should be going for everytime. For the expressions on their faces. One example I can give is simply asking them to run down the sidewalk holding hands and then jumping at a certain point and just capturing that natural reaction. It was such a goofy thing to do they would just turn to each other and laugh at each other and it’s just so natural. That was really a discovery point for how we should be interacting with our clients and creating those moments rather than just posing them.
How do you work together as a couple?
Megan: I would say that I probably take care of most of the admin/office work and Chris takes care of the books, he’s the numbers guy. When we’re doing a wedding or engagement session I’m usually giving the instructions and Chris is usually off getting more of the candid or documentary style shots.
Do you always shoot weddings together?
Chris: No, we’re always together.
Megan: I prefer having him there because for getting ready photos he goes with the guys and I’ll go with the girls and it makes things easier. Also, I’ll be looking at my photos and think ‘oh that’s awesome’ then I’ll be looking at his and think ‘how did you get that?!’.
Chris: This is a bit of an inside secret between the two of us, we have this private competition to see who can get the money shot during the wedding.
I love that, it’s a bit of friendly competition!
Chris: Yeah well we challenge each other and set our sights high for each other and hope that it produces something really cool.
Megan, we know you love animals, do you guys have any pets at home?
Chris: Yes, we have a boston terrier named Brew and...he’s a terrier.
So very energetic?
Megan: He’s crazy, he’s bananas. He’s so good though, he’s a little cuddler and just wants to be with us. We take him outside and he does laps and you can see the grass shooting up in the air.
Chris: He burns holes in the grass.
Megan: We also have a cat who’s almost 2 years old now.
Chris: Yep, Santa brought a cat for our daughter.
So between your pets, your kids and the business, it sounds like you stay pretty busy!
What are some local spots that you like to shoot at or just explore together?
Megan: I’d love to go to the Grotto in Tobermory when it’s not so busy and shoot there. Halfway Log Dump has a similar look, the same rocks and stuff. I’d like to go to Indian Cove, I’ve never been there. I love Tobermory. I’d never been there until I met Chris and now I just want to go to all the different spots.
Chris: There’s a lot of good spots there. In terms of wedding venues, probably wedding venue of the year would be Spring Creek Gavel Farms which is in Hepworth. We shot there for the first time last year and absolutely loved it.
You mentioned destination weddings as something you might want to do more of. Do you have a dream destination where you’d like to shoot a wedding?
Megan: Ireland. I really want to do a wedding in Ireland.
Chris: Yeah she’d do it for free.
Megan: My cousin did 6 months in Europe and went to Ireland and I told her that if she meets anyone who’s getting married, give them my card and tell them I’ll do it for free, they just have to fly me over there. Just to be able to shoot a wedding there. I’d love shoot a wedding at Disney as well. Santorini too.
Chris: Yeah. We took a trip to Santorini for our 10th wedding anniversary last year and we saw a couple weddings while we there and thought it would be an awesome place to shoot a wedding.
Wow that must have been beautiful! What destination is top on your list of places to travel to now?
Megan: Ireland for me. Or actually Africa.
Chris: Yeah South Africa was on the short list for last year too. Megan wanted to do cage diving with sharks.
Megan: I would love to do that.
Chris: We’re also going to Turkey next year for Megan’s sister’s wedding.
Oh that’s fun! Are you going to be able to restrain yourselves and not shoot?
Megan: I’m going to try but my sister wants to do a rock the dress session so I’m looking forward to doing that with her.
Going back to your business, do you limit the number of weddings you take every year?
Megan: We have been. When our son was born we limited it to about 6 that year and then about 10-12 per year. We’ll take on more probably now that he’s a bit older and I can actually sit and edit.
Chris: Yeah, we’ve been talking about it and I think the most we would ever do would be 24 because if you think about it, wedding season is in the summer. If we were to book solid from May to October that would be around 24 weddings so I think that would be the max. Also we want to make sure that we are available for all the post processing too. That’s one of the things that often we have to explain about why photography is priced the way it is. It’s not just that day that we’re there and taking pictures. We usually take 3 or 4,000 pictures and we have to go through each one of them afterwards and it takes a while to get through them.
How long have you been in this business?
Megan: Since 2011!
So what’s the verdict, are you still in love with photographing weddings?
Chris: Oh yeah. Yep, I mean part of it is that it’s a great excuse for us to go out too. For example, right now, talking to you, we’re without the kids. As much as we are working we’re also enjoying ourselves just being out and being kid-less for an evening. So it’s the same thing when we are meeting with clients or going to a wedding, it’s enjoyable, even though it’s work.
I think when we first started it was more stressful but now that we’re more seasoned, we know exactly what’s going to happen. We anticipate things, there’s not really a whole lot of surprises anymore so it’s just doing what we do and enjoying it.
Megan: And I feel like we have a relationship with all of our clients through our communication so when we get there to shoot it’s just like hanging out with friends that we happen to be taking photos of.
Thanks to Megan & Chris for taking the time to chat with us! Follow them on instagram, @thephotographyco.mc, or check out their website, www.thephotographyco.ca. If you’d like to get in touch with Megan & Chris to inquire about their services, you can contact them here.