Is it working?

This letter is supposed to market my business.

It is supposed to tell you about the things I'm selling and convince you to buy them.

The experts say email marketing should have video now. It needs animation. It needs to be paired with a text message and probably your subscribers first born child if you can manage it, otherwise, what are you doing with your life?

This letter is supposed to be urgent. Supposed to remind you of the problem and your scarcity around it.

It's not necessarily supposed to rant about how I began loving coffee or all the things I'm not confident about or poetically recap my adventure to Puerto Rico. Email marketing isn't really meant for telling nostalgic stories about my actual 90's childhood summer or rambling about bluejays and aging or connecting the dots between the Loch Ness Monster and AI. I don't think the gurus encourage writing emails when you're feeling jealous or don't have anything to write about.

Yet here we are.

I try not to be completely dense about business, but the business of family photography is a business of the soul, and as such, a magical unicorn that is exempt from some such advice.

I choose to believe that stories are really something.

That maybe I don't have to slap animations in your face if I can write honestly about something that takes you away from the mess of it all for a moment and makes you look around with kinder eyes. Maybe a letter can land differently, like a feather that makes you feel better after it slides to the ground vs a hailstorm of sales and slop.

Maybe if I share about ways I'm faulty and quirky and happy and silly and noticing and jealous and overwhelmed and growing… maybe you'll see the ways you are those things, too, and that they're all welcome. That I won't judge you or make you pretend to be someone different.

Maybe you'll reach out.

Maybe you'll hire me for a family session or a newborn session at home and your favorite places.

Maybe we can make pictures that skip through the awkwardness of being strangers because there's an understanding between us now.

And those pictures will capture the ways you're being silly and happy and quirky and human and you'll be really glad you have them.

And maybe you'll even start to see more beauty, feel more capable, become more open.

Is it working?

// new + noteworthy //

FROM THE 'GRAM//

What it's like with 3 kids (cue me trying to “work” while my big kids have “independent time” this week.

Oh the deadpan humor kills me. How future historians will talk about a 2026 home… perspective on some bananas choices, millennials. 😂

FOR KIDS //

We're going South Carolina for our now-annual family beach reunion next week, so a few things for the 7 hr car ride and our trip in general:

• Maybe a mistake, but my kids loooove drawing and I got each of them one of these.
• My kids are also hella uncoordinated but we've been practicing with this on our dining room table and it's added something new for the stormy afternoons and multi-age enjoyment. Will definitely be packed for more friendly competition.
• A new single camera strap for me. Last year I captured our trip entirely on a $100 point and shoot and it was great. But I'd love to be able to make other kinds of pictures too and I hope this will allow me to consider bringing my Sony even when my hands are full of beach toys.

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CREATIVITY | FAMILY | SIMPLE JOYS

On instagram @leahoconnell.photo

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