Setting photography business boundaries around your schedule is one of the hardest pivots a working photographer can make, especially when business is actually going well. In this episode of The Messy Middle, TMA Community Manager Ali sits down with family and newborn photographer Abby Park to talk about exactly that: what it looks like to have momentum in your business and choose to redirect it anyway.
Abby has been running Abby Park Photography for nine years. She photographs families and newborns, has four kids of her own, and made the intentional decision a couple of years ago to stop booking weekend sessions entirely. Now she’s in the middle of the next shift: moving everything to daytime hours so her evenings belong to her family. It sounds simple on paper. In practice, it’s anything but.
When Momentum Becomes the Problem
Most photographers chase momentum, and for good reason. Repeat clients, easy bookings, consistent income: these are real markers of a business that’s working. But as Abby explains, momentum is directional. And if you’re not paying attention, it will carry you somewhere you never intended to go.
For Abby, that direction was a calendar full of weekend and evening sessions that made business sense but left her family stretched thin. “It’s not the momentum that I’m after,” she says in this conversation. “It’s really the direction of the momentum that I’m after.” She knew that pulling back, even temporarily, would feel like backtracking. She did it anyway, because the destination mattered more than the speed of getting there.
This is the heart of what Ali calls The Messy Middle: that in-between space where your business is working well enough to have real momentum, but you’re intentional enough to ask whether it’s taking you where you actually want to go. There are no easy answers here, just honest questions and the courage to act on them.
How Abby Communicated the Change
One of the most practical parts of this conversation is how Abby handled the actual communication with her clients when she stopped booking weekends. She didn’t quietly disappear from Saturday slots and hope no one noticed. She sent an email, and she was intentional about what she said in it.
The email led with her heart, her genuine desire to better balance her business and her family. But it didn’t stop there. She also introduced clients to session types they might not have considered: morning sessions (when kids are at their best, not fighting bedtime or hungry for dinner) and in-home family sessions (the kind that capture everyday life rather than a posed moment in a field). She framed each option around the client’s experience and the real benefits to their family, not just her own scheduling needs.
She was also deliberate about language. Instead of opening every conversation with an apology, she simply stated how her business works: “I don’t do weekends, so that I can better serve my clients and my family.” No hedging, no lengthy explanation. The confidence in the delivery, she found, mattered as much as the policy itself. Clients can feel when a photographer is uncertain about their own boundaries. They can also feel when a photographer has decided.
The Outcome And What It Actually Looks Like
Abby is honest that the shift didn’t immediately replace her previous booking volume. She’s not pretending this was a seamless transition with zero losses. Some clients needed weekend availability and found another photographer. That was okay. What she didn’t expect was how many clients responded to her initial email with warmth, telling her they were proud of her, that they’d stick with her, that they were curious about morning sessions or open to something new.
Those early wins, a client excited about an in-home session, a family happy to shift their schedule for a morning shoot, were what kept her going through the moments of doubt. “When you start to see those little wins,” she says, “you see, oh my gosh, this is possible.” She’s not fully booked the way she was before. But she’s increasingly confident that a business built around daytime hours is a business she can actually sustain.
Ali draws a parallel to a story shared early in TMA’s podcast history, a photographer who stopped shooting October and November entirely because she didn’t love fall colors. She shifted her full season to August and September, lost some clients who wanted fall foliage, and ended up with a stronger, more cohesive brand because of it. The thread connecting these stories is the same: when you stop trying to be everything to everyone, you become something specific and compelling to the right people.
Listen and Learn More
If you’re somewhere in the middle of your own pivot, this episode is worth a listen. Abby and Ali cover the fear behind the decision, the exact email approach Abby used to communicate the change, and what it looks like to build client confidence in a new direction. This conversation includes both practical tools and a little more permission to trust your own instincts about what your business should look like.
Find Abby Park at abbyparkphotography.com or on Instagram at @abbyparkphotography.
Ready to build a business that reflects your own creative voice? The Motherhood Anthology membership gives you access to expert mentors, live coaching, monthly marketing suites, and a private community of photographers who are invested in your success. Learn more and join at themotherhoodanthology.com.
The Motherhood Anthology is a community and educational resource for photographers who want a profitable and sustainable business they love. With 15+ expert mentors and 7+ years of proven content, TMA helps portrait photographers build confident, thriving businesses through monthly education, mentorship, and a supportive community of 700+ members.
