Meet Sarah Bradshaw Photography

We are so honored to be introducing you to Sarah today! I’ve had the pleasure of having lunch with Sarah once before, and I walked away so full of encouragement and Scriptural wisdom. Sarah is the closest thing to a walking Bible I have ever seen. She must have quoted close to a dozen Scriptures throughout the couple hours we spent together. Sarah has such a passion for pouring Jesus into others and producing fruit in her business, her marriage, and her community. She is on fire for Jesus and absolutely loves investing in people. She also has an amazing testimony in her story of waiting for her husband! We are so excited to be featuring her and hearing her tell a little bit of her story today!

Who are you? Where do you live? What do you do?

My name is Sarah Bradshaw, I live in Washington, DC, and I’m a full-time wedding and engagement photographer.

How did you get into wedding photography?

I did conference and event planning for a non-profit in Chicago and Dalls for 3 years after high school, which was a great (and crazy!) experience for me. One of my coworkers was into photography— it had always interested me, but I never considered it for myself until my time with this organization was drawing to a close and the question “what’s next?” started popping up all over the place. I prayed for months about photography, and knew that if I was going to do it, I would have to be “all-in”— I didn’t want to put thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours into an expensive hobby— and eventually felt led to move ahead it. My intention was to pursue International missions photojournalism, and I wanted to travel around the world with my camera, telling stories of God’s faithfulness.

But there’s not much money in missions photojournalism, and I was broke, so I sought out work with a wedding photography company in my town, just to earn extra income. But then two things happened— first, I spent two months overseas (Thailand and Kenya) doing the mission work I’d dreamed of, and it became very clear to me that it was not what God wanted me to do; second, I fell head over heels in love with wedding photography!! I fought the “full-time, self-employed” thing as long as I could, but at the end of the day, I knew it was what I wanted, and what I was meant to do.

Sarah, you are so passionate about marriage. Do you have any advice for young, single girls?

Oh, there’s so much I want to say!!

1. You know all of those people who say that you should save yourself for your husband, who say that waiting is worth it? Well guess what— they’re right. I married my husband on August 10, 2013— I was 28. When Buck kissed me during our first look that morning, that was my first kiss ever. And it was 1000% worth the wait. I’m not saying that everyone has to wait until their wedding day to kiss (although I would probably say that it’s wise for many people), but I AM saying that purity is worth fighting for. All pleasure is fleeting, and none of it is worth

2. Real romance is hard work. Whenever I tell people my story, their first response is, “oh, that’s so romantic!!” And yes, it is! And it’s also hard work. But that’s the case for almost everything in life— the sweetest things we have are ones that took a lot of hard things to get to. The only exception to that is the Gospel, and that’s one of the things that makes God’s free and generous grace in salvation so miraculous.

3. The struggle for contentment doesn’t end once you get married, it just manifests itself in some other way. Getting married at 28, I had a lot of time to practice joyful contentment during singleness. But I’ve struggled with contentment more since being married than I ever did when I was single— it just shows up in different ways (instead of fighting for joy in singleness, I’m fighting for joy in health struggles, or work stress, or the apartment we live in). This is not meant to discourage you, but rather to remind you to fight well now, because you’ll need those lessons later.

4. Dating and marriage will affect your walk with God, so dig in deeeeeeeep now. Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 7, that the married woman is concerned with the things of the world, and how to please her husband, and the single woman is concerned with the things of the Lord, and how to please Him. Paul isn’t saying this is wrong, just that it is what it is, so use each season of life as well as you can to learn to love God better. In other words, don’t spend all of your single years wishing you were married! Instead, use it to dig deep into God’s Word. You will be filling a storehouse with riches to use later.

5. Even in singleness, value marriage, because God values marriage. It’s the closes earthly picture we have of the Gospel, and Christ’s love for the Church. It’s worth honoring, photographing well, speaking well of, and praying for, both for yourself and for God to bless healthy marriages around you.

I wrote a long blog post about singleness, in case you want to read it here. (And if you want to know more of our story, read my posts here and here.)

What is your favorite part of a wedding day?

Do I have to choose just one??! I love it all. I mean, there’s nothing like a good First Look— so much sweetness and quiet intimacy there. But then that moment when they’re officially pronounced man & wife? So much joy!! I love it!

How do you get your clients to open up and feel natural in front of the camera?

I work really hard to build trust in my clients apart from the camera (through meetings, conversation, surprise gifts, etc), so that by the time they’re in front of the camera, we have a good rapport.

What is your favorite portrait you’ve taken of all time? Can you walk us through how you captured this image?

Oh, I’m not sure I could choose just one— it’s like choosing a favorite child! But one of my favorites, and one that most well-depicts my brand, is one from a wedding in October of 2013— we were headed from the back of a manor house to the front for portraits, and I turned around and saw how perfect the checked floor and light looked, and just said, “stop! stand there for just one moment, and kiss.” I framed it up, made sure that my exposure was correct, and clicked. I was shooting with my 5D Mk3 with a 50mm f/1.4 at 1/50 sec at f/2.5 (no flash).

What is your favorite Bible verse? How does the Lord speak to you through this verse?

I don’t know… I love the whole book of Ephesians (Buck and I are memorizing it together right now). It’s such an encouragement to love the Gospel more, and a reminder of God’s overwhelming grace and love toward me in times of discouragement. I also love 1 Thess 4:11-12, which talks about how to think about work— live quietly, mind your own affairs, and work diligently, so that I may give a good report (have a good reputation) among non-Christians and be dependent on no one (aka, free to be financially generous).

What has been the most challenging part of 2015 so far? How do you see God at work in this?

Well, we’re in that crazy season of trying to buy a house, and waiting for God to provide has been challenging. And Buck travels a lot Internationally with his job, and it’s really hard to be apart from one another!!

What is your wildest, most crazy dream for your business this year?

I’m teaching my first workshop next month (!!!), which is crazy exciting. I’d love to shoot 25 weddings, to teach at least one more workshop, and to lay the groundwork for an Associates Program (eeeee!!!!) in the future.

Places you can connect with Sarah:

Personal FB: https://www.facebook.com/sarah.christine.bradshaw

Business FB: https://www.facebook.com/SarahBradshawPhotography

Website: www.sarahbradshawphotography.com

Blog: www.sarahbradshawphotography.com/blog

Twitter: https://twitter.com/_SarahBradshaw

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/SarahBradshaw1/

Instagram: instagram.com/sarahcbradshaw