Discerning vision
Photography turned a hobby into a successful career
Lori Brown is one of those people whose clients often run up to her and give her a big hug.
“No matter where I go, I’m likely to be grabbed and hugged by someone whose wedding or high school graduation or maternity photos I’ve taken,” said Brown, the owner of Mystique Photography. “It’s such a personal thing I do for them that this bond is formed. I think I can find the beauty in everybody, and I truly love them all.”
It seems to be a mutual feeling, as she has clients return time and again – including one woman who comes over from Seattle annually to Brown’s studio in the countryside outside Cheney for portraits of her child.
Brown, 39, a Cheney native and divorced mother of three children, has created a successful business out of a hobby, a business which supports her family. When her daughter Amber, now 16, was born, Brown took lots of pictures of her and kept trying to make the pictures better each time. Friends began inviting her to parties and weddings, suggesting she bring along her camera. Then strangers began calling and asking the same.
And so, 14 years ago, Mystique (www.mystique photography.com) was born. In the early days, it was film, which she had processed at Costco. Today it’s digital, computer enhanced as needed – and all self-taught.
And her advertising is still largely word-of-mouth. She travels throughout the region and country and has clients come to her from as far away as California. She often shoots the weddings of other photographers. Brown specializes in people.
“I like landscapes OK, but only if they have people in it,” she said.
What she brings to her art, she believes, is the ability to marry journalism and portraiture to tell a story, as well as her knowledge of light and composition to create an image. And what she focuses on always, she said, is that everyone is different and wants his or her story told in a way that recognizes that.
“And I’m without ego in this,” Brown said. “For example, what a bride and groom need and want in their wedding pictures, I try to make happen for them. Hands down, it’s still their day, and my job is to record what’s there. They will have their wedding memories through my eyes, and I better get the vision right.”
One of the keys to personalizing her photography for a client is to get a good read of them. She’s not particularly attracted to formula photography – same backgrounds, same angles, same wardrobe. So she takes the time to spot the quirks, personality traits and innate beauty of everyone she shoots, changing locales as appropriate, she said.
She is especially proud of her maternity work and has many portraits of women well along in their pregnancies. “There is a lot of trust involved for a woman to open herself up to me, to expose her body that way as we make art,” Brown said. “I am honored and respect that trust.”
Brown’s range of work also includes portfolio work for models, new babies portraits and journalism. She has shot covers for such local magazines as Prime and Catalyst and has had work in In Touch magazine.
An admitted insomniac (“artists are kind of freaky deaky”), Brown admits she works pretty much non-stop with her photography as she makes a life for Amber, who is often a second shooter at events; Kim, 15; and Brent, 6. “There are groceries to buy,” she said, “but if I want to take a day off to take my kids to the lake, we go!”
She also teaches photography online and designs Web sites for photographers.
“You know, with the cameras we have today, anybody can push a button and come up with a pretty good image,” Brown said, “But what keeps me in business is customer service. Oh, and artistry doesn’t hurt either.”
Another measure of her success is that the hugs keep coming.