Durham Branding Photographer

Carolyn Scott is a Durham branding photographer. She specializes in candid and editorial branding photography in the Triangle area (Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Cary, etc). Carolyn’s work has been published in several popular books and magazines, including Apartment Therapy, BuzzFeed, and Fangoria. Locally, she’s been voted Best Photographer in Durham Magazine’s Best Of Durham and INDY Week’s Best of the Triangle. She lives in South Durham with her husband Geoff and three cats.

One of the best parts of our job is getting to meet new people and finding out what things you have in common with them. We were delighted to meet and work with Alex, who loves horror movies and The Simpsons and The Expanse, among other wonderful things that we also love. In addition, he’s a pretty terrific human. He needed updated headshots, and we ran around Durham to find some city-anonymous backdrops and then made Alex lean against a lot of walls. He was wonderful to work with and we enjoyed talking about cute dogs and DC and how eventually getting your white Chuck Taylors a little bit dirty makes them look more authentic and science and The Thing and how the news stresses me out because everyone with yelling (all while still leaning against a lot of walls). It’s crazy how much everyone has in common once you meet and really talk to them – and we were happy to find out how much we have in common with Alex, and to take his updated headshots. Thanks so much for working with, Alex!

We did a shoot with Janice Smith of Big Dog Little Bed Productions way back in 2015 (see it here!) when I was just starting to become the creepily obsessed stalker of her dog named Toby. She wasn’t super concerned about my drooling over his fluffy adorable fluffness at the time but I think over time she’s come to realized just how serious I am about him. I call her from hotel rooms at 11pm to say things like, “Hey Janice! We just made it to Blacksburg! Are you still awake? Can I come see Toby? What’s your room number? Oh… you just got in bed? Okay…I guess I’ll see him tomorrow.” And then I call at 8am to say things like, “Hey Janice! We are awake! Are you awake? Can I come see Toby? You’re downstairs? Okay, we will be right down!” And I’m not totally sure what she thinks about my constant comments on her Instagram regarding him or my texting her to ask about him occasionally but you know what? I don’t really care. Toby is my dog soulmate. My love for him is broken down into several parts:

50% Unreal orange fluff
30% Playing like a total spaz with arms straight out in what I’ve come to call “invisible casts” and romping around like he’s done five lines of cocaine
20% Unrequited love (he does tolerate me and occasionally seek me out for head pats, but part of me enjoys the fact that every single photo I take with him involves him literally rolling his eyes or actively trying to escape)

Anyway, Janice told me that Toby doesn’t like it when girls come on too strong to him, so I’m trying to refrain from making this entire post about him. Janice is a dear friend of ours, an extremely talented female bossy lady videographer, a Durhamite, a lover of pups big and small (the small, also adorable, far more loving and friendly doggo in these pictures is Murphy), a trusted colleague, and a wearer of vests and fanny packs. We have a little too much fun photobombing her at weddings (there are probably many minutes of footage she’s accumulated and cut out) and we love her dearly. It was with great pleasure that we photographed her new promo photos for her wedding and commercial videography company Big Dog Little Bed. She is hilarious and charming and adorable and beautiful and intelligent and can rock 1977 dad glasses like there’s no tomorrow. This shoot makes me smile because Janice makes me smile. Also Toby.

Doing promotional photography for local businesses is such a fun job. Not only do we get to meet new people and discover new places, but we get to help them promote themselves which enables them to be successful. Plus, all small business owners are kindred spirits, eh? So it’s nice to be able to work for and with each other to promote everyone’s work. It especially gives me joy when promoting other female business owners in the area, so it’s with great pleasure that we introduce you to a wonderful downtown Raleigh business called The Design Gallery Salon! Heather and Lauren are the lady bosses there, and they have an incredible crew assembled with Casie (front desk multitasking genius), Terri (hair stylist who never complains), Lindsey (hair stylist with a fabulous sense of humor), and Neilie (esthetician who smiles a lot). They moved a few years ago from their previous location to a coveted spot in downtown Raleigh’s City Market where they’re quite established and have a loyal following of wonderful clients. We were brought in to take some updated pics of their crew and space, and we couldn’t have had more fun working with these wonderful women! So if you’re in the market for a trim downtown, visit http://www.designgallerysalon.com/. Also, much thanks and kudos to Erin Kelly Makeup for working with the ladies on the shoot!