Megan Jones is on fire right now. From winning the trifecta of photography awards, signing the lease on a new studio and needing to hire an assistant, she’s experiencing a career surge that means a lot more because she’s solo.
“I’m a nerdy amount of stoked,” she admits. “Any sort of recognition ... it’s not like I have a boss to approve or coworkers to tell. It’s just me running around like a nut.”
Her elopement photography company, It’s Megan Jones, is the seminal business for Jones, which yielded 120 elopement shoots last year.
“Last January I launched Savannah Glamour, focusing on women’s glam portraiture,” she says. “It’s been amazing—that’s what I really wanted to do. I decided to take a risk and it went so well.”
At Jones’ new studio, she keeps a closet full of gowns and boudoir pieces. For every shoot, she brings in a hair and makeup team to give the women their best look.
“It’s my heart’s passion, Savannah Glamour,” she says. “I love this so much. They look at the portraits and go, ‘I could never look like that.’ I take before [makeup] photos and my clients go, ‘I booked you because of these.’ They see only the after pictures and they’re like, no. When you’re in the right hands, you can do it.”
Jones’ glamour portraits do more than just make women look great; she makes them feel great as well.
“I edit the photos a lot, I love on these photo,s and then I bring the client back to me to see them,” she says. “When you’re alone looking at your photos, you love them, and then you nitpick them for a year. When you’re with me, I don’t let you nitpick. I don’t let you talk bad about yourself. Only love here. It’s an empowering experience. When you’re alone, it’s so easy to say, ‘I hate my double chin, I hate my eyebrows.’ When you’re with somebody else, you have to be a little nicer to yourself. That may even change how you think about yourself.”
Jones’ positivity is what makes her the ideal glamour photographer. She seeks to empower her subjects in a way that others don’t.
“Everybody needs somebody positive like that,” she says. “If that’s me for them, then my life is complete.” -- Rachael Flora
Runner-up, Studio: Megan Myrick Photography
