Today we’d like to introduce you to Monica Brodovsky.
Hi Monica, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Evergreen Story began nearly 12 years ago as a small photography and design business founded by Monica. At its heart, the work has always been about creativity, connection, and the stories that shape who we are. What started as a solo creative venture has grown and evolved alongside Monica through art, education, photography, motherhood, love, loss, and ultimately a deeper understanding of just how meaningful it can be to have life’s moments witnessed.
Over the years, the meaning behind the work became increasingly personal. After experiencing her own perinatal loss, Monica began volunteering with Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep and Capturing Hopes Photography, providing compassionate photography for families in the NICU and those grieving the loss of a baby. Those experiences profoundly changed the course of her life, eventually leading her to pursue a Master of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania and later work as a clinical social worker supporting children and families in pediatric oncology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Today, those experiences remain at the heart of Evergreen Story. We understand that photographs can be more than beautiful images. They can become memory, comfort, legacy, and proof that love was here.
About a year ago, Monica’s longtime friend and creative partner, Alex, officially joined the business. Our story began nearly two decades ago when we met as two caffeine-fueled art school kids at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, surviving design critiques and all-nighters together. Over nearly 20 years of friendship, creativity, and shared experiences, our partnership has grown into something much deeper. We’ve grown up alongside one another through love, loss, heartbreak, laughter, motherhood, and all the beautiful, complicated seasons in between.
Today, Evergreen Story is a collaboration between two artists and lifelong friends who believe that every story deserves to be held with honesty, artistry, and heart. From the joy of new beginnings to the tenderness of final chapters…we create photographs that honor what matters most.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The business may have grown out of our shared love of art and photography, but the road here has been anything but smooth. Like most small business owners, we have navigated the uncertainty of building something creative while trying to make it financially sustainable, the challenge of putting ourselves and our work out into the world, and the constant balancing act of being artists, business owners, and mothers.
Building a photography business during some of the most emotionally complicated years of our lives means learning how to keep moving forward while carrying grief and uncertainty. We have both been raising children while building our careers and nurturing this business, often trying to create something meaningful in the margins of already very full lives. There have been seasons when our energy was divided in a hundred different directions and moments when the business had to grow slowly because our families needed us first. There is a lot of unseen work behind the scenes: answering emails late at night, editing after everyone is asleep, navigating school schedules and sick days, and trying to figure out how to be present for the people we love while also giving our creative dreams the attention they deserve.
There have also been personal and professional transitions along the way. For Monica, pursuing social work, and later working in pediatric oncology changed the direction of her life and gave the work a deeper sense of purpose. Alex joining the business about a year ago marked another important evolution—transforming what had been a solo venture into a true creative partnership.
None of it has been linear, and we certainly haven’t always known exactly what we were doing. But perhaps that is part of why Evergreen Story is what it is today. The struggles, losses, transitions, and joys have shaped the way we approach our work. We know that life is unpredictable, and we understand that sometimes the ordinary, imperfect moments become the ones we treasure most. The road hasn’t been smooth, but we think it has made us more empathetic, resilient, and certain of why this work matters to us.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
At our core, we are visual storytellers. Evergreen Story is a woman-owned photography business created by two artists and lifelong friends who believe that photography is about much more than making pretty images. It is about preserving connection, celebrating who people are, and creating something that can become part of a family’s story and legacy.
Our work spans many of life’s chapters. We photograph families, newborns, maternity, milestones, intimate weddings and elopements, and legacy sessions, but our work is rooted in one central idea: every story deserves to be seen and remembered. We specialize in candid, connection-driven photography that captures both the meaningful milestones and the beautifully imperfect moments in between. Our approach is relaxed, playful, and never overly posed. We want people to feel comfortable enough to actually be themselves.
What sets us apart begins with our backgrounds. We both studied at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, where we developed our foundation as artists and visual storytellers long before we became professional photographers. Our formal art school training has shaped the way we see composition, light, color, movement, and storytelling. Photography is not just a service we offer, it is part of a larger creative practice and the visual language through which we understand the world.
But we also bring very different life experiences into the work. Monica is a queer woman, and Alex is a Polish immigrant. Those identities and experiences have shaped our belief that everyone deserves to feel safe, welcomed, and celebrated in front of the camera. We are intentionally inclusive in the way we run our business and the stories we choose to tell. Love is love, all families are welcome, and we want our clients to feel that they do not have to perform or fit into a particular version of what a family, a marriage, a body, or a life is supposed to look like. Our hope is that the people we photograph feel genuinely seen.
Perhaps our most specialized and personal work is in bereavement and end-of-life photography, including pregnancy and infant loss, and end-of-life pet photography. We are proud to be affiliated with The Tilly Project, and we believe pets are family. These sessions are gentle and centered around the pet’s comfort, personality, and the relationship they share with the people who love them. We have seen firsthand how meaningful these images can become after a beloved animal is gone. To make this work more accessible, our bereavement sessions and end-of-life pet sessions are offered on a sliding scale. We never want finances to be the reason a family cannot preserve these important memories.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Something that might surprise people is that our work can look very polished and intentional, but behind the scenes, we are often anything but. There is usually a lot of coffee, chaotic texts, laughing at inappropriate times, obsessing over tiny creative details, and trying to run a business in between all the very normal messiness of real life.
With both of us having backgrounds in art and design, we naturally wanted to build the visual identity ourselves. We created the logo together, and Alex, who has more than a decade of experience in interactive and web design, designed our website.
We are both perfectionists, and, as it turns out, we have very strong opinions about the color green. When Alex first saw Monica’s photography portfolio, she immediately noticed that Monica had a tendency to desaturate the greens in her images. Alex, naturally, had feelings about this. We hilariously disagreed about what the “right” green should look like in our photographs, and somewhere in the middle of all that back-and-forth, Evergreen was born. It became a playful nod to our shared obsession with color, design, and getting the little things just right.
“Evergreen Story” ended up feeling like the perfect name for what we wanted the business to be: something rooted, lasting, and connected to the stories that endure long after a moment has passed. So while Evergreen Story may look like a carefully crafted photography brand from the outside, it is also very much the product of two longtime friends who met in art school, have very strong opinions about greens, and somehow turned nearly two decades of friendship, creative collaboration, and life experience into a business together.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://evergreenstoryphoto.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/evergreenstoryphoto/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Evergreen-Story-Photo/61587075688704/
