Need a
Hi! I'm Shannon
Whether you need a second, associate, voice-activated light stand, wedding party wrangler, group photo perfectionist, selfie-booth supervisor, snack fetcher, emergency backup, or emotional support shooter… I’m your girl. Let’s shoot something beautiful together (and swap crazy stories)!
- 343 — Weddings & Elopements
- 2,000 — Average Photos Per Wedding
- 15 — Years of Experience
- 17 — Pounds of Gear
- 41 — TB of Backups
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0 — Times "One more photo!"
is actually only one more photo
I wish I could work with her more often!
Shannon is one of the best in the industry! If it weren't for us being on opposite sides of the country, we'd be working together all the time. Her personality is calming and fun to be around and I can't say enough about her attention to detail. I highly recommend her and wish I could work with her more often!
— Skylar Coonan Photography
Check My RAWs
Want to check my work first? I'll share a full wedding day, start to finish - no culling, no editing, no excuses - just RAWs.
You can never have enough backups! I keep double backups of everything I shoot - which means you have extra backups, too. For free.
The rest of the story...
As a creative, I believe community is so much more important than competition. Throughout my 16 years of experience, I've realized I truly love second shooting, supporting, and connecting with other artists and photographers. I've built a tight circle of professional, collaborative friendships around the world; and as a full-time freelancer, I value those connections more than ever before.
For 5 years, I held a full-time career as an in-house graphic designer, while running a steadily growing photography business on the side. I truly loved my design work: I was creating products, branding, labels, and packaging, and managing development all the way through finished product photography and advertising. The items I created were sold under major brand names in stores worldwide… although, as most corporate jobs are, the business was majorly exploitative and exhausting. I got married in 2013, and began picturing my future as a work-from-home mom and successful full-time wedding photographer.
Before long, I was matching my day-job salary on the weekends with photography work, and I was getting excited to leave the cubicle behind and go full-time with my own business – but in 2017, my husband went to jail and I faced a divorce. Suddenly carrying a mortgage and bills alone (and thankfully no kids), I chose the stable, predictable paycheck and health insurance of the day job, and let my own business fall aside.
I loved weddings too much to give them up, though – I no longer had time to edit or run a side business, but I could still second shoot! I switched to only second shooting while I got my life stabilized, and got signed with with a couple local studios. I prioritized working as much as possible, landed a big promotion and raise at work, then gradually started rebuilding a new photography business a few years later. Eventually, after 5 more years, my weekend photography once again matched my new higher salary – I was finally able to leave the stressful corporate job and support myself full-time… but in a different way than I had originally planned.
Through those toughest years, I met some of my closest photography friends; before I knew it, I had become their go-to first choice for weddings: between second, lead, and associate shooting work, my calendar was filling up with an average of 30 weddings per year… then 50! That little circle of creatives had become my lifeline and my family, and now second shooting feels just as natural and fulfilling to me as lead shooting.
I wish I could work with her more often!
Shannon is one of the best in the industry! If it weren't for us being on opposite sides of the country, we'd be working together all the time. Her personality is calming and fun to be around and I can't say enough about her attention to detail. I highly recommend her and wish I could work with her more often!
— Skylar Coonan Photography
