Student photographer glorifies God through business

Being a Resident Shepherd is a rewarding, but time-consuming and emotionally-heavy job in its own right. Take that, add being the owner of a small business and it becomes a jam-packed schedule. But Madison Richmond does just that. Richmond, a senior studying integrated communications, is an RS on the Hill and owns a small business in photography.

She first dabbled in photography as part of her job working on the social media team for the Liberty Broadcast Experience (LBX). Richmond was responsible for taking photos of the people working behind the scenes, whether for Convocation, sports games or concerts. With this job, Richmond expanded her creativity and learned more about her love for photography. This led to Richmond buying more equipment and starting her own brand. 

“My tagline is ‘capturing the beauty in the Lord’s creation,’ and I chose that because from capturing landscape photography to portrait photography, I think there’s so much to show off. I thought it just kind of encompassed everything that I like to do, and the whole purpose of my business was to glorify the Lord in the first place,” Richmond said. 

Richmond offered free graduation sessions to kick off her business, and now, two years later, she is fully booked for graduation. Currently, her photography business consists mainly of couples, elopements, weddings and portraits.

“It’s fun to capture people’s memories and give them something that I know they’ll hold on to forever,” Richmond said. 

While maintaining her small business, Richmond also has responsibilities on the hall that require her to learn how to balance both. 

“Being a Resident Shepherd on a hall is so much fun, and I’ve been really blessed with great teams, great community group leaders (CGLs) and great halls. That’s made balancing my academics, my hall leadership and my business pretty manageable,” Richmond said. “I think doing the work in the beginning of your time as a Resident Shepherd to hire great CGLs is going to highly benefit later on, and honestly, just a lot of strength from the Lord, a lot of energy and just praying for good rest and good time management is the only way I make it through.”

She hopes to continue shooting couple and graduation sessions, but she also hopes to shoot military homecomings because her fiancé is in the military. 

Richmond has worked with over 50 couples and done over 40 graduation and portrait sessions. This semester, Richmond has five new couples that she’ll be working with and 25 more graduation sessions all while balancing graduation herself in May. 

To see more of Richmond’s photos or to inquire about a photoshoot, visit her Instagram @madisonrichmondphotos.

Lunt is the digital media producer for the Liberty Champion. Follow her on Twitter