Today we’d like to introduce you to Brittany Norris.
Hi Brittany, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I started out chasing sunrises. Living on the coast, I’d get up before it was light and drive out to the beaches around Santa Cruz and Monterey just to see what the morning was going to do, and I got a little obsessed with that window right after the sun comes up when everything goes gold and soft. Then people started showing up in my frames. Friends, and then friends of friends who’d ask if I could take a few photos while I was already out there. That’s when it clicked that the light I loved so much was even better with people standing in it.
My mom is a big part of this story. She shot with a Nikon and she was always the one taking the pictures. She passed away when I was 16, and so much of what I have of her now is what she left behind in photographs. I shoot Nikon too. That’s not an accident 🙂
I think that’s why I care so much about photographing moms. So often mom is the one behind the camera, or she’s stepping out of the frame because she doesn’t love how she looks that day, and years later her kids go looking for pictures of her and there just aren’t many. So I say it gently to every mom I work with… please get in the photo. Your kids are not going to care about your hair. They’ll care that you were there.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I built the early years of this business as a single mom with my oldest, which mostly meant working in the margins. Editing after bedtime, answering inquiries in the pickup line, hauling a kid and a camera bag around and hoping the timing worked out. When you’re the only income and the only parent, every session you book matters in a way that’s hard to explain, and every session that falls through matters just as much.
Then we moved back to Monterey a couple of years ago, and I got married and had my second boy. I stepped away from photography almost entirely during this time. It was the right call, but it was still hard. I missed it constantly. Now I’m rebuilding in a new place. New coastline, new light, new tides to learn, and none of the word of mouth I’d spent years building.
So I’m rebuilding right now, and I’ve made my peace with saying that out loud. There’s a version of this where I pretend it’s all been an upward line, but the truth is I’ve started over more than once and I’m doing it again with a toddler on my hip. What’s different this time is confidence. In the beginning I was so dependent on getting the perfect conditions, and if the clouds rolled in or a family showed up late and lost the good light, I’d panic a little. Now you can put me anywhere, in flat gray overcast or harsh midday sun or a location I’ve never stood in before, and I know I’ll walk away with images I’m proud of. That took years and a lot of sessions that didn’t go to plan. It’s the thing I’d never trade back.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Just about everything I shoot happens outdoors, on the coast between Santa Cruz and Monterey. Families mostly, along with motherhood sessions and a good number of high school seniors. I love incorporating our stunning backdrops with the beauty of each client.
Almost all of my work is candid. I do very little posing, because the frames I actually love the most are the in-between ones: a dad swinging a kid up in the air or the look on a mom’s face when her toddler comes running at her full speed. Joy is not hard to find if you’re paying attention, and my job is mostly to stay out of the way of it and be ready.
Light is the thing I’ve gotten most particular about over the years. I’m almost always shooting into the sun, catching that low warm backlight coming off the water right before it drops. Most of my sessions are at sunset for that reason, and because it’s the window that works for families with little kids. Sunrise is still my first love, and there’s nothing like an empty beach at six in the morning.
Kids melting down doesn’t rattle me. I’ve photographed enough of them to know a tantrum usually makes a better picture than a cooperative smile, and parents can feel it when the photographer isn’t stressed, which is when they finally loosen up.
If I’m proud of anything, it’s how much my clients end up enjoying our sessions. Often times, people show up stressed and worried things won’t go right, but they always leave with giant smiles on their faces. Not only did they get to enjoy time with their family, but they are confident that they will have beautiful images to look back on and remember this part of their story. I love that part of my job!
Any big plans?
Nothing dramatic, and I’m okay with that. I’m settled back in Monterey now, which is a place I’ve lived before and always loved, so this stretch feels less like starting over and more like coming home. Mostly I just want to keep shooting here and meet more people. Every session lately has come with someone new I’m glad to know.
One thing I’ve been enjoying a lot is working with families who are here on vacation. So many people come to this stretch of coast once, maybe for a week, and they want something from that trip that isn’t a phone picture in front of the aquarium. I love being the person who takes them somewhere they never would have found on their own and sends them home with photos of the whole family together, which almost never happens otherwise.
So the plan is more of that. Growing steadily, staying close to home, and getting to keep doing the thing I love in the place I love it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.britthoney.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/britthoney
