Welcome to the fourth podcast episode of Sustaining Craft, a series that features those making a living with their craft. Sustaining Craft is a project of Hew&Weld Writing, story-based marketing crafted for local business. Listen below or keep scrolling to read the article about Brittany Oaks and her work with Wandering Oaks Photography!

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Brittany Oaks, owner of Wandering Oaks Photography, spent her teen years a little differently than most.

“I’d always, always loved birth,” Oaks shared. “It’s my favorite subject. As a teenager, instead of being obsessed with bands or whatever teenagers are obsessed with, I read midwifery manuals, because why not? I loved it. When I went to college, I … sat down and talked to a local midwife. She told me the steps I needed to take to become a midwife. I went on to declare nursing as my major and very quickly decided that I didn’t want to do organic chemistry and I didn’t like touching icky things so it probably wasn’t for me. I just kind of wavered around it. I didn’t know what I was going to do. And I ended up in history. … I just fell in love. I think what I’d loved the whole time was the story of birth and not necessarily touching it.”

Photo courtesy of Brittany Oaks, Wandering Oaks Photography

Oaks, the self-proclaimed history nerd, fell in love with the frat president and married soon after graduation. “I got married kind of young and then the economy crashed,” Oaks explained. “I couldn’t get a job with a history degree so we had a baby because that’s what you do. I was at home anyway being a stay-at-home wife, I might as well do something. So I had a baby and eventually, some time passed and I had a divorce. Because the history nerd marrying the frat president wasn’t a good idea, actually.”

Oaks made a few friends in Conway while a single mother and was invited to a home birth. “It was really, really incredible to see,” Oaks said. “And I’d given birth by that point myself. But this was an unmedicated home birth. She started out in the water and ended up going to her bed. And just the raw power and just the fact that she invited only those people she wanted there was really, really interesting to me. That’s who was in that house and I was invited. And someone threw me a camera while she was pushing and the rest is history. I was just in love with it. This is a story, and I want to tell this story. I want to capture these sacred moments because there are a lot of things worth capturing in life – momentous moments, but to me in that time, it made it really clear to me. I spent a lot of money on my wedding photography. The wedding was annulled. I can’t show those photos or care about them because you know. But it doesn’t matter what happened with that child. When you take photos of that new human being born, that’s always your child, no matter what happens. There’s nothing that’s going to annul that.”

Photo courtesy of Brittany Oaks, Wandering Oaks Photography

Oaks soon remarried into the military and was stationed overseas. Unable to work, Oaks practiced her photography skills, homeschooled her three sons, and traveled with her family. “But I knew when we got back to the states, I wanted to hit the ground running,” Oaks explained. “I knew what I wanted to do. So I did. We got back in August last year and I immediately filed for my business, got insurance and all the stuff that makes a business. … I knew what I wanted and I’ve been hustling ever since to make it happen.”

Currently, Oaks is the only photographer in central Arkansas who specializes in birth. “It’s a very different model from a regular photography business because I don’t take weddings,” Oaks said.

Because labor is unpredictable, Oaks only books one to three births a month and has peers she can rely on if needed.

Photo courtesy of Brittany Oaks, Wandering Oaks Photography

Starting from the moment a session is booked, Oaks is on call and she cannot book newborn or other scheduled sessions. If she goes out to dinner with her family, they take two cars and she brings her gear just in case she gets a call.

She also puts a lot of time into networking and marketing. “You have to realize that you’re not just an artist,” Oaks said. “You have to be a marketer. If you want to continue your art and not get burned out, you can’t do it for free and you have to charge appropriately. You have to figure out what that is for your family and for you, and you have to hustle.”

When she’s not rushing to a birth, Oaks volunteers with Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, an international organization that provides photographs of stillborn infants to their families. She applied in December of 2017, feeling a prompting to offer her photography. “My hands were shaking on the drive over,” Oaks shared. “I was very nervous because it’s a big deal. These are the only pictures that will ever be taken of this little human. These were the only professional photos that … the family will ever have of this child. The proof that they ever existed. It’s kind of sacred. It really is. I’m one of the few people on earth that meet these little people. … The minute I walked into the room, I felt an incredible calm and peace pass over me. … I think it comes from being in the place you’re supposed to be.”

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Episode 4 is up! There is MUCH, much more in the episode not covered in this article. Take a listen below:

Find Brittany’s work at her website, visit her page on Facebook, or see more beautiful photos on her Instagram.