Greenville South Carolina Family Photographer | Molly Flanagan » In Home Family Lifestyle Photojournalistic Storytelling Photographer serving Anderson, Greenville Upstate South Carolina Molly Flanagan

I’m 3-weeks into my course on Visual Storytelling through The Define School.  It has been pretty amazing and I am so honored to be teaching it.  I haven’t had much time for blogging (or cooking or cleaning or much of anything else) but I wanted to take a break from the craziness to share my new custom illustration!  I am pretty-much-crazy-in-love with it.

You know branding is a pretty big deal in the world of photography.  I remember a few years ago trying to sit down and figure out what my *brand* was.  What made me different from all the other photographers out there?  I had no idea about colors or fonts or packaging or logos.  But I knew what kind of pictures I wanted to take.  And I knew the way I wanted to interact with people.  So instead on focusing on the outward appearance of my blog and how I physically portrayed my image, I focused on building my brand from the inside out.  Through that internal branding experience, I discovered what my overarching vision was for my photography.  I have shared it a million times on here, but this quote by Carolyn McCulley has served to consistently bring me back to the reason why I want to be a Visual Storyteller:

Material goods & self-glorifying domestic perfectionism are definitely not the heart of the home. The heart of the home is found in the relationships nurtured there and the comfort offered to one another – comfort we have first received from God, the Father of compassion, and then share with one another.

Over the last 6 years, my camera has helped me apply this wisdom to my own life as well as how I approach photographing others.  I have poured who I am into being a STORYTELLER… documenting the true heart of the home, while investing myself completely into telling stories about the lives of families I work with.  For the last couple of years I have really wanted to express my overarching vision through the appearance of my blog, but anything I came up with on my own just seemed cheap.  I knew this was an area where I must collaborate with some professionals to help me convey what was in my mind.  However, the idea of trusting a stranger with all of my hopes and dreams and ideas was terrifying!  What if they didn’t get me?  What if they were terrible to work with?  What if I hated the end product?  Taking the jumbled mess of beautiful and meaningful things out of my mind and placing them into the hands of strangers felt like such a gamble!

Then, several months ago I came across This Paper Ship and fell head over heals for their work.

This Paper Ship is a husband-and-wife illustration + creative team with a passion for typography,
bright colors, whimsy, and keeping the art of hand-drawn alive.

Their work is simple, yet loaded with personality and color.  And whimsical without being too girly.  Their illustrations remind me of the old animated opening title sequences to campy movies from the 60s like the Pink Panther.  Why don’t movies do cool stuff like that anymore?  I stalked Joel&Ashley (in the endearing internet way, not the real life creepy way) for quite a while and finally worked up the nerve to contact them.  In our emailing I told them one of the things that I love about storytelling is wide-angle pictures that tell a story.  I like it when you are able to go back to a photograph or painting and see different things each time you look at them. I love pictures that are invitation to stay and visit and hang out for a while.  I wanted my illustration to be detailed and somehow have a story intertwined in it.  And I wanted it to reflect my approach of shooting exclusively in client’s homes and/or businesses.

Well, what they came up with exceeded all of my expectations!  Watching them work through this creative process of taking someone else’s thought and turning it into something tangible was nearly as rewarding as the finished illustration itself.  I was worried that I would be disappointed.  Or maybe that I would feel like a simple drawing could not add much or mean much in the grand scheme of things.  But I am SO glad I did this!!!  It feels good to have created a brand for my business that is thought out, personal and full of love.  And to have something beautiful to represent my goals and vision for my photography.

Thank you This Paper Ship for sharing your gifts and talents in such an incredible way!  xoxo