MEET | Lily Hayes

So What Inspired Me To Become a Professional Maternity, Newborn and Smash Cake Photographer, you might ask?

Having my son at the young age of 17 inspired me. He truly saved me from a life that I knew I didn’t want. I wanted to be better than my past, in order to build a greater future, for us. I owed him that. He’s the sole reasoning behind my aspirations to be a photographer and it all started when he made his way into this world. Documenting how incredibly innocent his beautiful little soul was, was pure joy. Nothing else compared to it. Documenting his organic smile, his way of being, day after day, did I truly understand how PRICELESS photographs were and how much I wanted to spend every waking moment documenting his every day life before it soon became a faded memory. Although that was a dream for a young 17 year old, I didn’t have financial stability to drop everything and take a chance on the unknown. Went to school, got a job in the medical field. Things were great for us but little did I know they were about to get better. I met my husband! The rest is now history.

Road to Success

After we were afforded the wonderful opportunity for me to become a stay at home mom to my last two boys and the documenting of they’re almost everyday life as I did with my first born, only then, did I realize how much I truly yearned to finally make my dream a reality. In 2013 made it a goal to teach myself everything I needed to know about digital photography, all while raising two young boys, 14 months apart. My husband supporting me more than 110% and believing in my ability. I studied photography intensely for the next few months. I would sit and read as much as I could in my free time; watch endless amounts of youtube videos, soaking up all I could about the fancy gear, technical skills and business related to digital photography. I was gradually make some money on the side but every penny made went straight back into my business.

On a whim one day I decided I was ready to start a photography business. I put an ad on Craigslist and I bought a website to showcase some recent work. I felt like an official “photographer” at this point, but I still had a lot of learning to do. I charged $65 a photo shoot and gave clients CDs of about 100 edited pictures. I quickly became popular and swamped with clients. From there, I just started to increasingly perfect my work, craft and technical skills to be where I am today but the road to success was not easy. It was probably one of the most challenging things I could have done; risk, failure, doubts, criticism, discipline, sacrifices, rejection, late nights, persistence, hard work which ultimately brought me to where I am today. I’m so happy to say all that work paid off. Now, I can officially say I’m a licensed, legal and insured maternity, newborn and cake smash photographer and this time I am much more in CONTROL of my business and CONFIDENT in what I love to do.