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.

Woah, you guys. When I opened up my email to see that I had an inquiry from this guy, I was half tempted to respond and tell him that I was booked for all of remaining space and time because I was way too nervous to shoot a session for him. I’ve been following/stalking/admiring Michael Moss and his photography work since 2008, since I first started my business and had zero clients. So to receive a super kind note from him asking us to shoot his promo session for his new website overhaul was high praise indeed. After I got over the initial shock and decided to refrain from telling him we were booked for all remaining space and time, we set up the session.

We were nervous. Well, I was nervous (Geoff is perpetually unworried and unconcerned). We hadn’t met and I was afraid I’d screw it up in some monumental and unforgivable way. Or my camera would die or I’d forget how to use it. But then the shoot started. And he was SO NICE. And he’s Canadian! I don’t know why, but this made me far less intimidated (it’s widely known that every single Canadian is nice), and then we had a good time. His wife Angelique (who, side note, is absolutely beautiful!) came with us on the session and did a great job being adorable and helpful and fabulous. And guess what? I don’t think we screwed it up. In fact, I think we did a pretty good job, but we also had some fabulous subjects to work with. Please check out Michael’s work if you haven’t had a chance, and enjoy our promo photos of him and Angelique!

We met Janice at a wedding we shot a couple years ago (how has it been so long?) and we liked her a lot. Then we found out her business name and we liked her even more despite the fact that we don’t have any dogs. Janice is the mastermind/owner/videographer behind her business Big Dog Little Bed Productions, aptly named after her bigger dog always tried to sleep in Murphy’s bed (you guessed it – Murphy is the little dog). The bigger dog whom the company is named after is unfortunately no longer with us, but she did adopt another bigger dog named Toby who is… well… he’s my new boyfriend, he just doesn’t know it yet.

But anyway – Janice is an absolutely wonderful videographer to work with and produces amazing videos all while being super unobtrusive and adorable. So when she wrote us to confess her love for our photo skillz, we were more than happy to work with her. The goal was to take some headshots and promo stills for her to use for her website (some of which took place in her coworking space Mercury Studio in downtown Durham and some of which were taken at her home, which she renovated and designed herself) and also to take some photos of the pups. Enjoy the cuteness all around!

Headbands of Hope

Hey friends! This is a bit of an out-of-the-ordinary blog post for us, and so I’m going to step aside and let Jess Ekstrom, founder of Headbands of Hope, tell you a bit about her amazing company. Needless to say, her mission really captured my heart and I wanted to do what I could to help them spread their message. :) Take it away, Jess!

“During the summer of 2011, I did an internship at the Make-A-Wish Foundation. I found that girls loved to wear headbands after losing their hair to treatment, but there were no organizations that provided them.

Therefore, I founded Headbands of Hope during my junior year at NC State University. For every headband purchased, one is given to a girl with cancer and $1 is donated to fund childhood cancer research.

Since launching HoH in April 2012, we’ve now donated headbands to every children’s hospital in the United States!

One moment in particular, a girl received her headband in the hospital and sadly passed away a week later. Her mom called me asking if she could have that same headband for all the women in her family to wear to her service the next day because that headband meant so much to her during her last week of life. It’s moments like this that prove how powerful one simple headband can be.

Starting Headbands of Hope has also led me to meet wonderful people, like Carolyn Scott. I had originally reached out to Carolyn in hopes that she’d use one of my headbands for one of her many bridal shoots. Instead, she so generously offered to do a complimentary shoot for Headbands of Hope. I was over the moon!

Not only is Carolyn beyond talented, she was also a blast to work with. Because of her generosity, Carolyn is really helping us spread the word about Headbands of Hope to the bridal community. We feel that our headbands can make perfect bridal headpieces and also give them the chance to give back on their wedding day.

It’s such a great feeling to meet people like Carolyn who want to use their talents for the greater good.

I also want to give a special thanks to all the models who came out for the shoot, Vestique for providing the clothes and Molly’s Musings for the awesome hair styling!”