Meet Mary Beth, Pittsburgh Area Photographer

Hello! It’s me, Mary Beth Miller, a Pittsburgh Photographer that specializes in newborn and family photography! I’m also known as The Pittsburgh Birth Photographer, unfortunately, I don’t do that as often as I used to. As much as I love to capture births, the on-call life is not an easy one!

It’s been a long time since I’ve done an introduction on my blog, so, here we go…

I’m a Mom to three boys, two of them are now teenagers and they are taller than me. My “baby” is almost 12 years old (had to pause here and digest that) and he’ll most likely pass me up sooner than I’ll ever be comfortable with!

Don’t let people scare you, tweens and teens can be pretty awesome. It’s so very bittersweet watching them grow up and become independent but I really miss raising little ones and I would 1000% go back and do it all over again.

My husband and I are about to celebrate 25 years together. He’s my rock and I’m not sure how he puts up with me most of the time but we sure do laugh a lot together.

Now I’ll briefly begin with how I became interested in photography….as cliche as it sounds it started like this… “when I was 12, my dad gave me my first camera and I fell in love with photography…”

I never really planned on being a professional photographer, although there was a brief time I thought it would be awesome be a National Geographic Photographer. I loved taking photos when I was in high school and spent a lot of time in the darkroom (yes, I’m that old, from the film era), and I almost always had a camera on me.

I went to college (Pitt and Penn State) to be an elementary school teacher. In all honesty, I did not really want to be a teacher but my Dad put that idea in my head and I was a bit lost and had no other direction I wanted to go.

In my final year of college I lost my Dad after a long battle with cancer. That obviously had a huge effect on my life. I have very few images of my Dad (especially of me with him) and I treasure each one of them. (His death made me want to provide families with more images of their loved ones)

My Dad died two years after he retired. He never got to enjoy his boat or his RV or follow through with all of his big retirement plans. This had a great effect on how I viewed life and I wanted to live life to the fullest and not put off all of my adventures for retirement.

Fast forward a few years and two babies later, I decided I wanted to quit working full time and stay home with my children but I also needed to find a way to earn money while doing it. Little did I know that running a photography business is also a very full-time job! But I could at least make my own schedule.


I had been taking photos of family, friends, and my co-workers’ kids and my passion to photograph families really started to develop. My brother-in-law encouraged me to start my own photography business and I’m so grateful for his encouragement!

Within a year, I decided to make it happen and I officially started my business in 2009. In addition to babies and families, I dabbled in weddings and senior photography but realized those last two were not my thing.

A little more about me…

I talk a lot, maybe too much sometimes. I may also be an over-sharer.

I return stray shopping carts from the parking lot at the store and I pick up litter on my walks.

I’m the kind of person that lets others merge in front of me in traffic but I’m also the kind of person that gets annoyed when those people do not give me the thank-you wave.

I’m flawed and imperfect. I don’t answer my phone 95% of the time and I can run out of patience pretty fast with the humans I share a home with. (I’ll blame COVID, aka lots of togetherness)

Here’s a list of things I love. I’m going to do that thing where I don’t think and I just type as the words come to my over-caffeinated brain.

• coffee
• iced coffee
• coffee ice cream
• car rides all by myself
• sunsets
• giggling babies
• rainbows
• elderly people
• singing birds (only after 8am)
• hugs
• walks in the woods
• ALL of the flowers but especially dahlias
• AFV and funny animal videos (these literally keep me from going insane or depressed) and it’s my favorite thing to do with my husband after a long day
• my golden retreiver Lucy
• other peoples dogs
• dogs on the internet
• hugging dogs
• Chipolte chicken salads
• creamy, cheesy pasta dishes
  
  
  …ok, now I’m hungry and I can only think about foods that I like so I’ll stop listing things now unless you want to see ten more of my favorite foods. Thanks for reading!
  
  

If you’re interested in booking a photo session with me, shoot me a message, I’d love to hear more about you and your family!

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Let’s connect over there!

~All images by Mary Beth Miller Photography ~

Mary Beth Miller Photography specializes in lifestyle and documentary family and newborn photography in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and many of the surrounding areas. Mary Beth has over twelve years of experience. Her style is very relaxed and natural and your family session will feel like a stress-free Sunday afternoon with your family!