Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisa Collins-Haynes.
Hi Lisa, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My story begins where my mother’s story ended. At 50-years-old my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and lost her battle six months later. I can still remember it like it was yesterday, but it was actually 14 years ago. But had it not been for that life event, I don’t know if I would have broken out of my shell. With the loss of my mother, it taught me that life was incredibly short not to be doing exactly what you want to do in life. One of her favorite songs was, I Hope You Dance, by Lee Ann Womack and her favorite lyric was, “And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance. I hope you dance…”. Since she passed away, I’ve been dancing my ass off and I hope I’ve made her proud.
After my mother’s transition, I abruptly resigned from my dead-end job that was sucking the life out of me. I enrolled back in school and went on a fast track to earn both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I decided to become a writer and started traveling the world to write about different international destinations, cultures, cuisine, attractions, etc. Jet-setting the globe was not only an escape, but it was everything that I thought it would be; and more. Learning about cultures and the ways people lived in other parts of the world was enriching and eye-opening. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d be feeding stingrays in the Maldives, or visiting an orphanage in Thailand, or making mint tea with Moroccans in the High Atlas Mountains as they told me stories about Moroccan history.
Everything was smooth sailing until one day, my editor asked for pictures from all my travels that would go along with all my published travel articles. That really stumped me because I wasn’t a photographer and didn’t know the first thing about capturing professional quality images that would be magazine worthy. But I gave it a shot. My article came out and when I turned the pages looking for my pictures, I was surprised to see stock images. That’s when it dawned on me that my images weren’t good enough for publication and I needed to get better.
I ended up applying for a scholarship and winning it to attend a digital photography program at my local community college. It was a certifying program and taught me all the basics of photography, lighting, editing, and starting a photography business. At the completion of the program, I was inspired to start Charmed Life Photography and began photographing any and everyone that would allow me. As time went on, I developed specialities and passions about what I enjoyed to photograph the most.
I had a client that was pregnant and asked for an underwater maternity – portrait session. I had never heard of such a thing and began to research it, even though I had a severe swimming/water phobia. As time moved forward, my client ended up being high-risk and wasn’t cleared by her physician to do an underwater session. But my interest was piqued and I dove headfirst into making underwater photography a niche’ in my business. But first, I had to overcome my fear, my deep-rooted phobia and learn to swim.
First day of swim class, I cried…I mean an ugly cry too. I was so afraid, so unsure, so nervous and all my memories of being pushed off a diving board as a child by my swim teacher at the Y; came flooding back. My husband and daughter were with me this time, but the most comforting thing that happened was when the class instructor swam over to me and said, “God told me to help you.” I only signed up for group adult lessons, but this instructor turned her class over to someone else and gave me private weekly lessons until I became a confident swimmer. After overcoming that hurdle, I needed to find a mentor to teach me the art of underwater photography. I did my research and I found a photographer in the Czech Republic whose work I admired. I reached out to her and she told me if I ever found myself in Prague, then she’d teach me. Fast forward a few months later and I was on a flight to Prague. My mentor Lucie Drlikova armed me with all the knowledge I needed and her one-on-one guidance was essential to becoming a successful underwater portrait photographer. And the rest as they say, is history!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Birthing a new business is never easy and like many, I had to overcome challenges too. While I can speak about it candidly now, my swimming journey wasn’t as simplistic as I probably made it sound. I was nearly 40-years-old when I started this and had already suffered an optic neuritis…which is a tale – tale sign of an underlying auto-immune disorder. Shortly afterwards, I developed Multiple Sclerosis and many of the debilitating conditions that came attached with it….but with strong determination and drive, I pushed through it and still do, daily.
Living with MS and running a business with MS has been hard since day 1. The struggle is real, as they say. But I’m reminded all the time that life is too short not to be doing exactly what you want to do. So as hard as it is and as hard as it gets, this is what I want to do in life…and I’m so grateful that I have the opportunity to do this dance of life, as my mother would want me to.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My business name…my best friend Rokeisha Bryant came up with it. She’s great at so much, but naming things is one of her strong points. When I was an international travel writer, I was blessed to visit so many regions of the world that Rokeisha would always tell me that I was living a charmed life. So when it came to choosing my business name, Charmed Life Photography was a natural fit.
I specialize in underwater portrait photography, mainly for maternity clients — but non-maternity clients also book underwater sessions with me. I also photograph traditional non-water maternity sessions, birth, newborns and families, because my maternity clients usually book all their motherhood sessions with me.
I’d say I’m known for all my water-based sessions from underwater to milk-bath and citrus-bath sessions. When I’m not in a pool, I can usually be found in my outdoor shooting studios, “Charmed Gardens Greenhouse Wet or Charmed Gardens Greenhouse Dry”. I had these shooting areas built on my property specifically to shoot milk, citrus bath sessions and traditional greenhouse sessions for my clients and I also rent the spaces out to other photographers. They are both so rustic and beautiful. “Wet” is constructed with 100-year-old barn beams, antique roofing tins, stepping stones with imported Mexican tiling and a vintage authentic clawfoot tub. “Dry” is also constructed with 100-year-old wood and some of the windows date back to the late 1800’s and early 1920’s.
My wet and dry greenhouses are my happy place and curating these one-of-a-kind shooting areas definitely set me apart from others and offer my clients a totally unique experience.
Brand wise I’m most proud of my natural ability to pivot and adapt to changing situations while still keeping true to myself and a consistent brand. I’ve created a reputation in the streets of Austin and people know I’m reliable and will always get the job done with my signature style. They can count on my creativity and my practicality and I think that speaks volumes.
While photographing underwater portraits is my passion and brings me joy; it’s not the only type of photography I do. I’d love to share that I’m also a rockstar when it comes to shooting food commercially for restaurants—it’s like my guilty pleasure and there’s nothing better than photographing a sexy plate of food. And when time permits, I do videography for both small business branding sessions and wedding elopements. I’m also starting to mentor photographers that have been in business at least one year but still need help fine-tuning their business.
Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
When I think about what my favorite childhood memory would be, nothing really stands out surprisingly. But I honestly feel like it’s because I wasn’t living my best life during that time. I was a keep your head down and just muster through life kinda kid. My best life and best memories didn’t start until I hit my 30’s and no one in my family or circle of friends would have ever foreseen what my life turned out to be. Hell, it still shocks me sometimes. Lol.
So while I don’t have any favorite childhood memories to share, I do have some fun facts about my childhood that I’ll share with the readers.
1. I’m an only child with seven other siblings. (My mom just had me, my father had eight children). And yes, I still definitely suffer from only child syndrome.
2. My mom was in the military when I was a child and we lived in Germany for two years. This is probably where I was bitten by the travel bug.
3. I had a dog as a child, and I named him Monday. Clearly, my creative genes hadn’t kicked in yet.
4. I skipped a grade in elementary school.
5. I never had the upper body strength to pull myself up on the chin up bars in gym class…I still don’t. LOL
6. I had two dates for the Homecoming dance in high school, once. Yes…scandalous I know!
Pricing:
- Underwater Portrait Session Fees start at $575.00
- Milk Bath Session Fees at Charmed Gardens Greenhouse start at $450.00
- Newborn Session Fees start at $550
Contact Info:
- Email: Charmedlifephotography@gmail.com
- Website: www.charmedlifephotography.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/charmedlifephotography
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CharmedLifePhotography1
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/MMSwQ0uuPik
- Other: https://www.facebook.com/CharmedGardensGreenhouse
Image Credits
My Headshot: Marissa Southern and Tameko Cox
