Paul Wesley
Lynda
Every picture tells a story, and when Lynda Berry is behind the camera, each one also has a feeling. It’s that emotion, captured forever, that drives every photo she takes as the principal photographer and owner of Lynda Berry Photography. When she brings her eye up to her Canon, no matter the life event, she is searching for the moment that will resonate decades later. “I always love looking at pictures. I love looking at old pictures, and I love that memory it brings back. You can always see the memory. You can always get that feeling,” said Lynda, who called Furlong home for 12 years before her move to Doylestown about six years ago. “I wanted to create that. It's a big thing for me.”
Big things are what Lynda Berry Photography specializes in. Weddings and bar and bat mitzvahs are no small affairs—they are special days that are years in the making. Lynda’s creativity and attention to detail, as well as her emphasis on communication, has earned her in-demand Doylestown-based studio the WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Award, then the Couples’ Choice Award, every year since 2012.
Such straight-from-the-heart accolades should come as no surprise as Lynda describes herself as a people person and a people photographer. Of course, she can shoot a landscape and even collects other’s work on the subject for her own enjoyment, but she prefers it if there is a beaming face or two complementing her shots of a golden hour sunset. “I love movement in photography. If I have to pose something, that's fine, but then I let my couples enjoy each other and move around and laugh. They don't have to be stiff—my style is not stiff at all. I want it to be real, and I want it to create a feeling,” said Lynda, who is versed in both traditional and photojournalism styles of wedding photography. “I enjoy people. I enjoy getting to know everybody on a personal level. I enjoy the venues and building relationships. It's not just a paycheck.”
From the start, it seemed photography was more than a way to make a living for Lynda; it was an extension of her being that was inspired by her interest in the images themselves. “A camera was never given to me. I always wanted it. I asked for it first, but it wasn't like someone gave me a camera and I had fun with it. It was like, ‘Oh, I want a camera,’” she said, recalling that her first one was a Canon.
Lynda became so adept behind the lens that she shot for her Council Rock High School yearbook. After graduating in 1990, she headed to The College of New Jersey, where in 1995, she earned a bachelor’s degree in graphic design with a minor in photography. She began freelancing for newspapers where she was paid $35 a photo—with a bump to $75 for a front-page color shot—while also taking pictures of local sports teams, working at a portrait studio, assisting photographers on their wedding shoots, taking classes to broaden and sharpen her skills and building her own portfolio.
While juggling her expanding career, Lynda was also raising two children, Dalton, now 21, and Ellie, now 19, as a single mom. Though she had been running her business from her home to much success, in 2010 she was ready to open her own space at Main Street Marketplace in Doylestown, where she remains today. Lynda knew her craft and had built solid relationships with colleagues, clients and venues that made her ready to take the leap, but there was one last hurdle to face—and only she could clear it.
“I remember the financial end of it was so scary. I remember having to make that decision to invest in this and was it going to work and were people going to come and should I be doing this—you know, was I good enough? Just believing in yourself. That is the biggest thing,” Lynda, who is also stepmother to Grayce, 22, said. “Then what happens is, it’s the kind words and the feedback that keeps you reinventing and making it better and better and better.”
Lynda’s business thrived and continues to do so, and her days—especially her weekends—are committed to multiple professional events. She finds balance through weekday escapes to her favorite Jersey Shore haunt, Atlantic City, where her condo is always waiting. There she indulges in her love of sun, sand, slots and dining. It’s also time spent with her husband of five years, Don Forbes, and their family. She also fills her free moments with her other passions that seem in tune with her artistic nature, whether it’s appreciating beautifully designed cars, music from country superstars like Chris Stapleton or Toby Keith, camping in the great outdoors (something she has been doing since she was a teenager) or exploring sublimely designed architecture and real estate.
Lynda’s discriminating eye sees the details that create the whole, each line and curve, each angle and slant. She also sees so much more in a snapshot—its history, its story, its spirit—than others might. When long-ago pictures from totally separate strangers landed on the doorstep of her home and business, Lynda embraced the gifts knowing, as she has said before, photos always find their way home. “Somebody knocked on our door, our home, and said, ‘I have this photo of this property from 50 years ago when the barn and the farm and everything was here.’ The fact that this photo has so much history, I could stare at it all day,” said Lynda, who comes from a creative family that includes her great-aunt, the late watercolorist Edith Berry of Newtown. “Probably two weeks go by, and somebody knocks on my office door. They're like, ‘these old photos have been sitting.’ It was my building. They were like, ‘This is when they were building this building.’ I thought that was the coolest thing. It validates how important photos are and why I do my job. I just love that. I just love that feeling, to look at that photo.”
For Lynda, each image leaves breadcrumbs so future generations can find their way to their pasts—their way home, so to speak—whether it’s stills from a wedding or a bar or bat mitzvah or even one taken with a casual cellphone click. In each, Lynda only sees the love. “I think it's so important that you document your life. So many people shy away from the camera,” said Lynda, whose studio specializes in wedding albums to celebrate a couple’s day. “There is never a photo I won't let somebody take of me. I may say, ‘Don't put that anywhere.’ But I don't care if they keep it because when they look at it, they'll just see me and love me for the way I am. They're not going to pick apart the photo. That's why people need to accept it, enjoy it and look at it for the feeling that it offers.”
Lynda Berry Photography is located at Main Street Marketplace, 22 S. Main St., Suite 215, Doylestown, and can be reached at www.lyndaberryphotography.com; by phone at 267-221-8581; by email at lyndaberryphotography@yahoo.com; and on Facebook and Instagram.
Cynthia Marone is a freelance writer from Philadelphia.