Sharing a life and a profession, Tim and Laura Sullivan expand the heart of their community.

Although they now share an incredibly fulfilling life and a profession, Laura and Tim Sullivan both couldn’t have possibly imagined how satisfying of a life they would create together before their paths crossed. Many years later, a shared interest continues to support their relationship and the underlying motivation for their work—separately or together—has never changed: to create memorable and meaningful experiences for themselves and those in their communities, and to make them timeless through their photography.

Before meeting Tim, Laura was employed as a social worker in Seattle, Washington, working on a refugee resettlement project at Lutheran Community Services. Although she cherished the position she was given through her work to support the transition of new refugees to the Seattle area, Laura had not been able to find the fulfillment she initially expected. What she loved about social work was her direct engagement with the people she worked with: being welcomed into their homes, meeting them and their families, learning about their lives before arriving in the U.S. and immersing herself in their different cultures. However, due to political decisions that continuously reduced funding for resettlement, Laura had fewer and fewer opportunities to meet new families, so she wasn’t engaging enough anymore with the aspects of her profession that she had previously enjoyed. 

Meanwhile, Tim was living in Paris translating a fashion blog from French into English. When Laura discovered the blog and started reading it herself, she reached out to Tim to ask him what type of camera he was using to take the photos posted on the blog. The two of them became pen pals and stayed in touch once Tim moved back to the States. In 2011, Laura visited Tim in Texas and they’ve been together ever since.

Although they both loved photography, neither of them knew enough about it to pursue it professionally when they first met. Tim was a yoga instructor and they were running a yoga studio together when Laura finished her Master’s degree. When Laura came to the realization that the profession was not a good fit for her, she started to feel really lost and unsure of what her next step could be.

One day, Tim asked her what she wanted to do instead of what she thought she should be doing. Without even having to sit with the question for a while, Laura answered; “I want to be a photographer!” Tim was already pursuing photography as a hobby, so when Laura expressed this desire, they determined that it would be a joint venture.

Their first leap was an online course that covered the basics. Then they shot one of their friends’ weddings. This led to 2 other weddings later that year and 40 weddings the following year.

“We were really trying to get our names out there and jumped right into it,” Laura says. She attributes the success of their first year to the fact that they worked to make the couple’s day better and easier as a result of being there (even if at the beginning, their photographs weren’t as professional-looking as they are now).

“We’re such proponents of marriage ourselves and I think that really makes a difference,” Laura says. She adds that she “flows like water” with Tim, which helps on wedding days because they don’t have to talk through everything. Each of them can fully dedicate themselves to being present with one half of the couple.

Laura and Tim decided to add another dimension to their business by incorporating their passion for traveling. They had heard from other couples that they’d had a hard time connecting with a place when they traveled. Some of them spent a lot of money on their trip and some spent as little as a dollar a day, but they all returned feeling like they didn’t have a good sense of what the country and its people were really like.

Laura’s philosophy is this: “You don’t show up to a place to consume, you show up to learn and enjoy what that place does better than what you’re already doing, and to be respectful about all of that.” If something about the way you live your life doesn’t change after you travel, you didn’t do it right.

Laura and Tim decided to combine forces with their friends and host travel retreats together. For every retreat, they partner with different friends who contribute a plethora of skill sets to enrich the experience for attendees. In Sicilia, they worked with a yoga instructor; in Yucatan, a musician and an interior designer; and in Chiang Mai, a writer. 

Their inaugural retreat was in a castle in the South of France. They spent almost all of their money to rent the castle and even though they were terrified after the shock of putting down such a huge deposit, this was the moment when Laura developed her life philosophy: “Do everything like it’s your 95-year-old self looking back on your life. You would not be proud if you played it small and didn’t take risks.”

Every retreat has a different theme. In France, it was flânerie, which is the French concept of strolling without a particular aim. In Mexico, it was sobremesa, which is the time after a meal spent with family and friends. According to Laura, sometimes the themes can’t be expressed precisely in English because there is no exact translation, so it gives everyone an opportunity to learn something new that exists outside their culture and life experiences.

Although none of the retreats have been specifically focused on photography, they all include two photography classes taught by Laura. Her motivation is to make sure that everyone has the skills to take good photos, whether they are traveling with an iPhone or a camera. In her time working with refugee communities, she came to realize that none of them had photos of their homes and many of them didn’t have any photos in their possession, period.

“For most of us, photos are a commodity like water,” Laura explains. You can take hundreds of photos on your phone, which ultimately means none of them stand out. In order to help people rediscover the value of a single photograph, she teaches participants how to frame a subject and how to achieve good lighting. But the most important lesson is in documenting lives in a beautiful and thoughtful way.

“We all probably have one photo of our grandparents that we know like the back of our hands. Since photos of people from previous generations are rare, they are also precious and they allow us to slow down,” says Laura. Five good photos are ultimately more valuable than a thousand, mindlessly taken snapshots. This belief, which the couple share, is what Laura hopes to instill in her students during her classes.

Both Laura and Tim deeply cherish that their careers allow them to meet new people and photograph one of the most important days of their lives. Holding the role of hosts during retreats and telling others’ stories through their photography gives them the opportunity to make other people the center of their attention. “When we are in the daily grind of our own story, it becomes difficult to see how deeply moving and beautiful the ordinary can be,” says Tim.

Years from now when they look back at their work, Laura and Tim want their subjects to feel like their story is part of something greater.

“[Photography] expands our hearts… helps us feel connected and live a little more soulfully. We want everything we do to help us achieve just that.”

 

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