2018 Year in Review

2018 was an exciting year filled with many changes here at Lori Mason Photography! As we are almost to the last day of the year I thought I would share some of our business and personal stories of the year.

Babies…lots of babies! I can’t believe how lucky I am that snuggling babies is my job. Each and every one of them is a blessing. I am so grateful for all the families that trusted me with their most precious little ones. I love being able to provide such a meaningful service, to make a difference and give families images they will cherish forever.

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We had a terrible scare early in the year with our sweet Goldendoodle Calvin. If you don’t know about Calvin, he’s kind of a big deal. He even has his own Instagram account @doodleincident. This little boy is just the absolute sweetest thing ever. He was about 7 months old when he showed all the signs of a blockage. Numerous x-rays and consultations were all inconclusive, so the decision was made to do exploratory surgery. They didn’t find any foreign objects, but his insides were pretty twisted up preventing everything from passing through him properly. Thankfully, they were able to untangle everything, patch him up and within a week or so he was as good as new. Whew!

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The Cherry Blossom trees this year were amazing! I was able to photograph one of my favorite clients among the blossoms. It was a perfect day and this family was just beautiful.

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Mansfield Mayhem! Every year the Mansfield Reformatory (as seen in the “Shawshank Redemption”) rents out the entire facility to a small group of photographers for the evening. I really had no idea what to expect going into it but I knew it would be amazing! I love old abandoned places and this did not disappoint. The iron work was beautiful, even with all the peeling rust. Oh, and the light! Just incredible, a fuzzy, hazy dream. My only regret was not knowing about it soon enough to gather together some models to come with me. While I was there, I learned that this is popular for high school senior portraits. I can see why…guess what I’ll be planning next year?!

aNOTHER PHOTOGRAPHER’S MODEL…I COULDN’T RESIST TAKING A QUICK SHOT FROM THE SHADOWS AS THE LIGHT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL!

aNOTHER PHOTOGRAPHER’S MODEL…I COULDN’T RESIST TAKING A QUICK SHOT FROM THE SHADOWS AS THE LIGHT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL!

Mid summer I discovered that my website was gone. Yep, completely and totally gone. The hosting company that I had been using had a server crash and they were not able to restore anything. Mine and hundreds of other people all lost everything. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that they had no backups. This is a company that hosted thousands and thousands of websites. It’s just unbelievable. I lost the months of work it took to build my website, but thankfully, all of my images are backed up in multiple places so I still had those. You should be doing the same with yours. Please don’t rely on a single method of storage.


This takes us to our new studio! For years I had envisioned having a commercial studio space. I loved my home studio, but it was time to take the next step. The new space was a mess when I first saw it, empty, dirty and being used by other tenants as a workshop. Through blood, sweat and tears (literally) we slowly transformed this ugly duckling to a darling space that I love dearly. My sweet husband Elliott put so much hard work into laying the floors, installing the sliding doors, assembling the Ivar storage system for all the props and so much more. I am so very grateful for everyone, from those who gave me the confidence to take this leap, my landlord who was so excited to have me there, the contractors who did what we couldn’t, my new neighbors who offered help and support, the Solon Chamber of Commerce who coordinated the ribbon cutting, my daughter Stephanie who surprised me by flying in from Wisconsin to be with me during our grand opening and of course the rest of my family who shared this journey with me on such a personal level. Thank you all so very much. I hope to have many happy memories here. Here’s to a Happy 2019!!