Small Business Love Project

For the past few weeks, I have been working on my Small Business Love Project - a project where I photograph small businesses in my city, who have been working to stay open and help our community during this stay-at-home time. My husband was the one who brought the project to me after seeing a photographer in his hometown of Mississippi doing a similar project. I did not have to think on it long before I knew that this was something I wanted to do, as a way to help other small businesses with their marketing and as a thank you for all of their hard work and dedication during these crazy times. I tried to photograph every business that reached out to me, and felt bad when I could not reach some that had originally showed interest in the project.

To be honest, I had not been out much at all during this pandemic. My husband is a nurse and thankfully working, as my own photography business came to a screeching halt with the stay-at-home order. I have truly been enjoying my time at home, without early wake up times, working on home projects, catching up on work, cooking (a lot!!), and hanging with my kids, doggie, and husband. My husband had been doing all of the grocery shopping, and I had barely been out except for long dogs walks and driving in my own neighborhood to see my mom or sister. But, it’s been over 2 months, and I’ve been getting super antsy to shoot, so once the stay-at-home order was lifted, I was so happy to get out into the community and photograph these small businesses.

Luckily, I had my trusty assistant with me, my soon to be 13 year old daughter, who helped me so much by setting up my off camera lighting at each location, taking behind the scenes footage, and becoming my social media consultant for Instagram. I honestly could not have done this without her.

I have loved every minute of this project, truly. I loved meeting all of these business owners and employees, figuring out how to photograph them, and making new friends and connections. They have all made me feel appreciated, which is a really good feeling, and I am grateful that they trusted me to create a portrait for them to represent their businesses. I even loved all the running around, driving around the city of Plantation, running home if we had downtime between business, grabbing Starbucks in between, all the yummy treats these business owners gave us so kindly, and all of the feedback I have been receiving from the community. I hope you all have enjoyed learning about these wonderful businesses, and I hope you will continue to support them as we move forward with opening up our community. Thank you all so much!! xoxo

Here are all of the businesses I was able to photograph over the two week period of the project!

Mia Cake House