Today we’d like to introduce you to Tammie Lamb.
Hi Tammie, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Looking back, it’s amazing how one unexpected moment can completely change the direction of your life.
When my oldest daughter was born, I invested in professional newborn portraits, and the experience was everything I had hoped for. It wasn’t just the photographs I loved—it was the way I felt. I felt cared for and understood during one of the most emotional seasons of my life. I remember telling my husband that if we were ever blessed with another baby, I couldn’t wait to go back and do it all over again.
Just a year later, our second daughter was born, and we returned to the very same photographer expecting to relive that experience. Instead, it was completely different. I left feeling heartbroken and disappointed. Those first days with your newborn are so incredibly fleeting, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had missed something I could never get back.
Seeing how upset I was, my husband looked at me and said, “Why don’t you buy a camera and try it yourself?”
Neither of us realized that one simple sentence would completely change our lives.
So I bought a camera.
At first, I simply wanted to create beautiful photographs of my own children. But once I started, I became fascinated by something much bigger than photography itself: the ability to capture love.
There is something extraordinary about watching a parent with their brand-new baby. When I look through my camera, I know I’m not simply photographing a newborn. I’m photographing one of the most important people in someone’s entire world.
That realization changed everything for me.
I became fascinated with creating images that bring together both artistry and emotion—the careful posing of a brand-new baby, the tiniest details I know will change far too quickly, and the connection between a parent and their child. I love thoughtfully creating a beautiful portrait, but I also love capturing what exists underneath it all: the way a mother looks at her baby, the way a father’s hands seem impossibly large next to that tiny little body, and the overwhelming love that fills those first days as a family.
A photograph has this incredible ability to take something we can feel but can’t physically hold onto and preserve a piece of it.
That’s what inspired me then, and it’s still what inspires me today.
I still remember the first time I turned my camera around and showed a new mom the photograph I had just taken of her baby. I watched her eyes fill with tears as she looked at that tiny face on the back of my camera. She hadn’t even seen the finished image yet, but it didn’t matter.
I knew exactly what she was seeing.
She wasn’t looking at my lighting or my posing. She wasn’t thinking about my camera settings or whether the photograph was technically perfect.
She was looking at her baby.
One of the most important people in her entire world.
And I had been trusted to capture that love for her.
That moment changed the way I understood what I was doing. This was so much bigger than creating beautiful photographs. I was preserving something a mother could return to years later, when that tiny baby no longer fit against her chest quite the same way.
As the years have passed, I’ve realized there may be another reason photography found such a permanent place in my heart.
I didn’t grow up with much, and I have very few tangible memories from my childhood. In fact, I have only one photograph of myself as a child.
Just one.
I think when you have very little documentation of your own childhood, you understand differently what it means to have it. I know what it feels like to look back and wish there were more—more photographs, more little pieces of a life that could remind you what it looked like, what it felt like, and who you were in that moment.
Maybe that’s why preserving memories has become so personal to me.
Photographs have a funny way of becoming more valuable with every year that passes. Today, it might simply be a photograph of your newborn curled up in your arms. Ten years from now, you notice how tiny their fingers were. Twenty years from now, you remember the way they fit against your chest. And someday, that photograph may belong to them.
Eventually, it’s no longer just a picture.
It becomes part of a family’s history.
Every tiny yawn, every wrinkled little foot, every sleepy stretch, every proud glance between new parents—those details disappear almost as quickly as they arrive. I can’t stop time for the families who trust me with their babies, but for a fraction of a second, I can preserve it.
People often say that if you find your passion, you’ll never work a day in your life.
I don’t believe that’s true.
I’ve never worked harder than I have building this business.
There have been failures and setbacks, long nights and self-doubt. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve had ideas that didn’t work. I’ve questioned whether I was good enough. There have been moments when quitting would have been easier than continuing.
Finding your passion doesn’t suddenly make the hard parts easy.
It makes them worth it.
Failure still hurts. Long nights are still long. Sacrifices are still sacrifices. But when you care deeply about what you’re building, those moments become part of the story instead of the end of it. They teach you. They humble you. They push you to become better.
And when I see a mother tear up over a photograph of her baby, suddenly all of that work makes sense again.
I’ve also learned something over the years that has shaped the way I run my business: people may not remember every little detail of their photo session, but they will remember how they felt.
When a family walks into my studio, I want them to feel cared for. New parents are often exhausted and overwhelmed, navigating one of the biggest transitions of their lives. For those few hours, I want them to know they don’t have to worry about anything. They can simply be present and love their baby.
Because I know firsthand that the experience surrounding a photograph matters, too.
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of photographing hundreds of families. I’ve watched babies I once photographed as newborns grow into toddlers and then into big brothers and sisters. Families have returned with their second babies, their third babies, and for milestone after milestone along the way.
Being trusted with one chapter of someone’s story is an honor. Being invited back to document the next one is something I will never take for granted.
My husband has been part of this story from the very beginning. He was the person who first told me to pick up a camera, and he has continued to believe in what I was building through every version of it—the successes, the failures, the crazy ideas, and all the growing pains in between. What began with one simple suggestion from him has grown into something our entire family has built a life around.
Success looks different to me now than I ever imagined it would.
It isn’t about awards or followers or how many sessions I can fit onto a calendar. It’s knowing that somewhere, a photograph I created is hanging on a family’s wall. It’s having a parent tell me those photographs are among the things they would grab if they ever had to leave their home. It’s knowing that decades from now, a child might open an album and see exactly how tiny they once were—and how deeply they were loved from the very beginning.
Life has a funny way of turning disappointment into purpose.
Had that second newborn experience gone exactly as I expected, I may never have picked up a camera. Something that felt so disappointing at the time quietly redirected my entire life.
And maybe that’s the part of my story I appreciate most.
Photography was never really about cameras for me.
The love is what inspires me.
Photography is simply how I’ve learned to preserve it.
And if the photographs I create today allow someone, decades from now, to hold a piece of a moment they thought was long gone, then every late night, every failure, every lesson, and every bit of work it took to get here has been worth it.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Has It Been a Smooth Road?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road, but I think that’s part of building something that truly matters to you.
Like so many small businesses, COVID was incredibly difficult. Photography is built around human connection, and suddenly the very thing my business depended on—being close to people—was something we were being told not to do. There was so much uncertainty, both personally and professionally. I had built something I loved, and for the first time, there were circumstances completely outside of my control that could take it away.
Coming out of that period brought its own challenges. The cost of running a business continued to rise, families became more careful about where they spent their money, and the photography industry itself began changing incredibly quickly.
More recently, AI has created an entirely new challenge. I actually use technology and digital tools in my own creative process, so I don’t think the answer is to fear it or pretend it doesn’t exist. But there is no denying that AI has changed the perceived value of creative work. Today, someone can generate an image in seconds that might look beautiful on a screen, and as a photographer, you have to continually remind yourself—and your clients—what cannot be generated.
AI can create an image of a baby.
It cannot create a photograph of *your* baby.
It can’t preserve the way your newborn actually looked at ten days old, the way they curled their fingers around yours, the expression on Dad’s face when he held them, or the way Mom looked at this little person she had waited months to meet. Those are real moments, and their value comes from the fact that they actually happened.
There have also been the everyday struggles that come with entrepreneurship: financial uncertainty, balancing motherhood and a business, long hours, creative burnout, mistakes, comparison, and constantly having to adapt. There have absolutely been seasons when I’ve wondered whether all of the work was worth it.
But I think struggle has taught me something important about passion. People love to say, “Find something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” My experience has been almost the opposite. When you love what you do, you may work harder than you ever imagined.
The difference is that the work feels worth fighting for.
Every difficult season has forced me to evolve, learn, and become better at what I do. I don’t think success is about finding a road without obstacles. It’s about continuing to build when the road looks completely different from the one you thought you were going to travel.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
About My Work
I specialize in maternity, newborn, milestone, and cake smash photography, with newborn photography at the heart of what I do. In many ways, my work allows me to tell the beginning of a family’s story—from the anticipation of pregnancy, to those first impossibly tiny newborn days, to the personality that emerges during that first year and, eventually, the celebration of a first birthday.
My style combines carefully posed portraiture with genuine connection and emotion. Whether I’m photographing an expecting mother, posing a brand-new baby, or trying to keep up with a one-year-old covered in cake, I want the finished photographs to be beautiful and artistic while still feeling like *them*.
Maternity photography has become especially meaningful to me. Pregnancy can be such a complicated season emotionally and physically, and I love being able to show women how beautiful and powerful they are during it. I want a mother to look at her photographs and see more than how her body looked while carrying her baby. I want her to see the anticipation, strength, and love that existed before she ever held that child in her arms.
Newborn photography is where so much of my heart lives. Being trusted with someone’s brand-new baby is something I will never take lightly. I’ve spent years learning the art of newborn posing and how to work safely and patiently with each individual baby. Some babies love certain poses, while others have completely different ideas, and I’m perfectly happy letting them lead me. No photograph is ever worth forcing a baby into something that isn’t comfortable or safe.
Then there are the cake smashes, which are an entirely different kind of wonderful. I love designing those sessions and bringing a family’s vision to life. By that age, the tiny newborn I once carefully posed has opinions, expressions, favorite things, and a personality all their own. Cake smash sessions give me the opportunity to be creative and playful while documenting just how much can change in one short year.
One of the things I’m known for is creating a highly personalized experience. I don’t want my work to feel like an assembly line where every client receives the same photographs. I spend a great deal of time thinking about colors, styling, props, textures, sets, and all of the little details that make a session feel intentional. I love everything from simple, timeless portraits to elaborate custom setups and creative digital composites.
I’m also very hands-on with my clients. Becoming a parent is overwhelming enough without having to figure out every detail of a photography session. I want families to walk into my studio and feel like they can exhale. I provide the wraps, outfits, props, and setups and guide them through the process so they don’t have to arrive knowing exactly what to do.
What I’m most proud of, though, isn’t one particular photograph or setup.
It’s the trust.
I’ve had the privilege of photographing hundreds of families, and many of them have returned again and again. Sometimes I first meet a mother while she’s pregnant. Then I’m holding her newborn in my studio a few months later. Before I know it, that same baby is sitting in front of me smashing their first birthday cake. Later, that family may return with another pregnancy and another baby, and I get to watch their story continue.
That is one of the greatest privileges of this career.
I think what sets me apart is that I genuinely care about the experience just as much as the final photographs. I know firsthand what it feels like to walk away from a photography experience disappointed, and that experience ultimately played a huge role in why I started doing this in the first place. I never want someone walking into my studio to feel like they’re simply another name on my calendar.
I want them to feel seen and cared for. I want Mom to feel beautiful during her maternity session. I want exhausted new parents to be able to sit down and relax while I carefully photograph their baby. I want parents laughing while their one-year-old completely destroys the cake smash set we spent hours planning.
Most of all, I want them to leave knowing that we preserved something they can never recreate.
I’m incredibly proud of the business I’ve built, but I’m even more proud of the relationships behind it. At the end of the day, I don’t want to be known simply as someone who creates beautiful photographs.
I want to be known as someone families trusted to tell their story.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Advice for Someone Just Starting Out
My biggest advice is to give yourself permission to be a beginner.
I wish someone had told me that when I started. I spent far too much time comparing my beginning to someone else’s tenth year. I would look at photographers whose work I admired and wonder why I wasn’t there yet, without stopping to think about the thousands of hours, mistakes, failed ideas, and years of experience that existed behind the images I was comparing myself to.
You’re going to take photographs you absolutely love and look back at them five years later and wonder what you were thinking. That’s a good thing. It means you grew.
Learn everything you can, but don’t become so focused on doing things exactly the way someone else does them that you never discover what *you* bring to the table. Inspiration is important, especially when you’re learning, but eventually you have to stop trying to become the photographer you admire and start becoming yourself.
I also wish I had understood earlier that being talented at photography and running a successful photography business are two completely different skills. You can create beautiful work and still struggle if you don’t learn how to communicate with clients, manage money, set boundaries, market yourself, price sustainably, and treat what you’re doing like a real business. Some of my hardest lessons had very little to do with a camera.
And you’re going to fail.
I think we’re unnecessarily afraid of that word. I’ve failed more times than I could possibly count. I’ve tried things that didn’t work, spent money I probably shouldn’t have, doubted myself, changed directions, and learned plenty of lessons the expensive way.
But failure isn’t proof that you aren’t meant to do something. Sometimes it’s simply the price of becoming good at it.
I’d also tell someone starting out not to wait until they feel completely ready. You probably won’t. Take the class. Practice. Ask questions. Invest in education when you can. Learn your equipment. Learn your craft. And especially if you’re working with newborns, never stop educating yourself about safety.
Most importantly, remember why you started.
There will always be someone with a bigger studio, newer equipment, more followers, lower prices, or work that makes you question your own. If you build your career around comparison, you’ll exhaust yourself trying to win a race that doesn’t actually exist.
Build something that means something to you.
People often talk about finding your passion as though everything becomes easy once you find it. It doesn’t. You’ll still work hard. You’ll still have bad days. You’ll still fail.
But if you’re lucky enough to find something you truly love, all of that work starts to feel worth it.
And I think that’s the part I wish I’d understood from the beginning: you don’t have to have everything figured out to start. You just have to be willing to keep learning long enough to become the person who eventually does.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lambsnewbornandfamilyphotography.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lambsnewbornphotography/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lambsnewbornandfamilyphotography/
