Today we’d like to introduce you to Regina Hyman.
Hi Regina, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I fell in love with photography as a child, running through 35mm film constantly. I always knew I wanted to be a photographer. Something about being able to capture a moment in time and knowing you can save that memory forever has always been fascinating to me. I attended photography school at the Hallmark Institute of Photography in Turners Falls, MA. Immediately after graduating I packed my bags and moved to Orlando to follow my dreams of becoming a Wedding photographer for Disney Fairytale Weddings. I worked for the Disney Fine Art Photography team as a contract photographer for nearly seven years. In that time, I photographed over 1 thousand Disney weddings as well as special events.
During this time, I also was in pursuit of the ultimate dream, which was to have my own business. I gradually built up my own photography business while I was still working for Disney until the day came when I decided I was ready to go full time into business for myself. During this time, I also was blessed to marry my best friend and forever love of my life, Gary! He has always been my biggest supporter in life and he was also ready to leave his full-time job as a Hotel Manager and join me in business. We set out to create our own dream of being able to work together and enjoy every second of this life on earth together. We both love photography and have an extreme passion for weddings and telling love stories through the lens. We have been working full-time together in our business since 2012 and loving every second of it! Sure there have been some stressful times, as there is in any business. However we wouldn’t change a thing, we work hard at something we not only love but love doing together.
We enjoy making other people happy and knowing that what we do each day has a lasting impact on their lives. We cherish the relationships we build with each of our clients and we are forever grateful they chose us to be their photographers. We have grown our business in different ways over the years and through trial and error, we continue to grow and learn. A couple years into our business we expanded to also offer cinema packages and we have an amazing team of cinematographers that work for us. We love being able to collaborate with our cinema team and be able to offer the client everything they need to capture their day perfectly through their photos and cinema.
We are so grateful for all that we have and that we both made the decision back in 2012 to take a leap of faith in leaving our full-time jobs to pursue this dream. It is worth all the hard work and we can truly say we love what we do.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The wedding industry is continuously changing. There are always more and more photographers entering the market and of course that brings more competition. We have focused our business on not just promoting locally but also promoting ourselves as worldwide destination photographers. We will travel anywhere to photograph a wedding and we absolutely love to travel! So this has broadened our opportunities greatly. Over the years, we have photographed in 10 different states as well as Internationally and cruise line weddings.
Social media is probably one of the biggest game-changers in how the industry and marketing has changed. Often times now protentional clients are more likely to view your Instagram or Tik Tok rather than your website. These changes have taken some adaptation on our end as we did not grow up in an age of social media and when we started out in business social media was not nearly as prominent as it is now in the world. However, we are continually developing, learning and growing with these ever-changing trends.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We believe that what sets us apart from others is that we truly give each and every client a personalized experience with us. We get to know them during the months leading up to their wedding so we can be sure we are able to understand who they are as a couple in order to get the true emotions to shine through in their wedding photos and videos. We take the time to learn all the immediate family member names as well as the entire wedding party. That way on the wedding day we can call everyone by name and they feel so much more comfortable with us. The goal is for everyone at the wedding to enjoy the process of having their photos taken. If the client’s are having fun with us and us with them then we will always have a perfect outcome of capturing their day to it’s fullest!
We also believe it sets us apart that we are a husband and wife team. We have a love story that helps us to connect with our couples.
The thing we are most proud of with our business is that we took the leap and followed our dreams and now 13 years later we are still loving what we do. Their were many nay sayers as you might call them that doubted our decisions to leave our full time jobs 13 years ago and go into business for ourselves. Many people tried to discourage us, but we held true to what we knew we could accomplish together as a couple. Our saying as a couple has always been that we are “Unstoppable” and together and with God we can accomplish anything we set our minds to.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Tough question….I am a pretty open book! Many people might not know that while being pregnant for our son we photographed 46 weddings. For anyone who has been pregnant they will understand that is a lot especially during the super hot months here in FL.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.reginahymanphoto.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reginahymanphoto/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reginahymanphotography
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@reginahymanphotocinema
