Flexible business choices and a new photography direction.
I became self-employed after my first child, knowing a traditional 9-5 wouldn’t suit the family life we wanted. While juggling it all isn’t always easy, the freedom makes it worthwhile. Over the last 14 years as a full-time photographer, flexibility has allowed me to balance work and life.
This week we had an inservice day at school. My eldest add their friends planned to cycle around Milport, so I said I’d be their parent taxi service. All I needed was somewhere to sit with internet access and I was able to continue working remotely. Thankfully I dodged the awful weather that Glasgow experience and I had some time to wander on the beach with my camera.
My definition of sucess in business.
Flexibility in my workweek is important to me. Early in my business, I realised that it’s my available time, not the number of shoots, that measures my success.
I started out photographing weddings, which then developed naturally into family sessions. I became very good at saying yes to certain work and learning quickly when to say no. At first, my rule was to take on two weddings a month. If a third enquiry came in I needed a real connection to the place they were getting married, or the client really wanted me to photograph their wedding. It didn’t matter if the dates were midweek or weekends, I knew monthly this was enough for me to give each client my full attention without feeling burnt out. In the early days, if I could have photographed everything in Glasgow, I would have done.
Now I’m entering the teenage years with my children, and my family life is looking very different from when I first set up my business. Over the last few years, I’ve been consciously shifting my business to more midweek work to free up weekends for my family. I have been building up my architectural & interior photography clients as well as business branding clients. I still photograph weddings, but I do a much more curated number each year. I still love them as much as I did when I started, but I want to offer a more bespoke service. I am now only taking on a small number each year. This also allows me to take on more family photography at weekends.
New Brand Focus.
This shift in my business structure has also influenced my branding decisions. For 2026, I unified my two brands, Mack Photo and Mack Studio, under one umbrella. Initially I aimed to separate business-to-business and business-to-consumer clients. However I discovered client overlap, as many small and medium-sized businesses fit both categories. Pulling all my portfolios together on one website felt like a natural next step.
Building on this, last year I started offering my photography CPDs to architects, interior designers, and other professionals in the construction industry. In discussing my photography journey, I realised that the benefit of catering to each field of photography helped me with the others. Specialising in only one area no longer fits today’s creative industry.
So much of my work filters into each part of my photography. I want wedding clients to experience having their day shot by an architect aware of composition, context, and storytelling. I want my commercial clients to know that I’m used to working with people who are not professional models under high pressure situations, where I have a very short time to get things right.
Website Updates.
Since the start of the year, I have been working on redesigning my website. My business has been quietly adapting to include more branding work, and now it is time to showcase it in one place.
You can see more over on my new portfolio pages here – ARCHITECTURE – BUSINESS BRANDING – EVENTS
