Fargo photographer offers modern red-carpet portrait experience with The Luxe Booth

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FARGO - The lights flash, the camera clicks, and a glossy black-and-white print slides into a guest's hand - the kind of portrait you expect at an Oscars after-party, but, thanks to local photographer Bethany Johs, the experience is happening at Fargo weddings, galas and other events through her newest venture, The LUXE Booth.

Johs, owner of Artography by Bethany, has spent more than a decade building a photography career focused on glamour and empowerment.

In her world, everyone deserves the star treatment - red carpet, velvet ropes, the flash of paparazzi lights and a professional portrait with friends and family.

With The LUXE Booth, she's taking her expertise out of the studio and into event spaces, elevating the traditional photo booth experience by offering a guided, high-end portrait experience inspired by the Vanity Fair Oscar party.

"We wanted to bring the red carpet and the red velvet rope and bring a little bit of that paparazzi feel to it," Johs said. "We wanted to bring a keepsake - a lot of weddings will leave disposable cameras on all the guest tables, and they might get great shots out of that, but a lot of the time... the cameras just get left and there's not a lot of shots on them. We wanted everybody to walk away with a print - anyone who wanted to pose for the photobooth."

Forget renting a photo booth where half the photos are pose duplicates or eyes-closed mishaps - Johs' LUXE Booth delivers a polished black-and-white photo experience that brings the glamour of Hollywood right to local celebrations.

"Traditional photo booths are very popular - but the lighting is usually poor," Johs said. "We wanted to elevate that experience and bring that celebrity-inspired luxury to Fargo - that includes having a live photographer that's able to direct them, pose them and give them ideas."

Helping guests come up with flattering poses in front of a professional backdrop, and under glamorous lights, Johs captures magazine-worthy shots of couples, large groups, family portraits - the entire wedding party.

Within minutes, they each receive a glossy 4x6 photo to remember the night.

That same experience was a hit at the wedding of professional football player Cody Mauch of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and his wife, Carley, where guests lined up to pose for red carpet-style portraits.

And what might the bride and groom leave with?

The LUXE Booth offers the opportunity to purchase a special LUXE Guestbook, filled with the beautiful portraits of their guests alongside handwritten messages from their favorite people.

The LUXE experience includes an online gallery, available for 90 days after the event, and unlimited 4x6 glossy prints so that every event guest can leave with a keepsake they'll actually hold onto - possibly frame - put someplace that they can enjoy the memories of the night.

"When wedding photographers come around, it's the main core family that gets a nice, beautiful family photo... but that extended family that's there with you, too, might not get included," Johs said. "Everyone's already dressed up, the whole family is already there... You got your kids that you don't always see, get them in the photo - then you have a nice family photo."

Johs' photography career didn't start until she was 44. After years of working in IT and running her own tech company, encouragement from friends and a desire to take better photos of her children nudged her towards photography.

With the help of an art background and the lifelong love of fashion, she quickly fell in love with the craft.

In 2012, she started Artography by Bethany in Fargo. Within a year, she hesitated whether or not she should continue with photography -- until she stumbled onto her future mentor, Sue Bryce.

Bryce works with contemporary style glamour, with full-service hair, make-up, lashes, beautiful wardrobes, and all things to make the models and the portraits glamorous.

"These women looked like they were just walking off the pages of a fashion magazine, and I'm like 'that's what I want to do,'" Johs said.

Shifting from general photography to a focus on contemporary glamour portraits and boudoir sessions, Johs started hosting photo sessions in her home, photographing 30 women in her living room within the first year.

A move into a studio brought even more opportunities for Johs as she was able to continue both portrait and boudoir photography -- work she says makes up about 90% of her studio's bookings today.

In 2014, Bryce asked her to become a mentor herself; to educate and coach up-and-coming photographers. This led to her teaching new photographers how to value themselves; set their prices, how to go out and sell their services, and hone in on their niche -- just as Johs did with boudoir photography and empowering women.

Much of Johs' work centers on empowering women to "exist in photographs" -- inspired in part by her own mother's absence from family albums.

Her 40 Over 40 Project invites women over the age of 40 to take part in luxury boudoir sessions, share their stories, and celebrate their bodies and every feature.

"We give them that opportunity to just have fun, get dressed up, get some pretty pictures taken, and that to me is more rewarding than anything because I have had women come back to me and say that session changed my life," she said.

She said many women step outside their comfort zones during these sessions, often seeing themselves in a new light and realizing what they're capable of.

She emphasizes that her boudoir sessions are about sensuality and women feeling beautiful in their own skin, not about sexuality - even when clients choose to go nude, it's done tastefully.

Johs recounted a story about a former client trapped in an unhealthy marriage. After a photo shoot with Johs helped the woman regain her self-esteem, she found the courage to leave the marriage, get the tattoos she always wanted, secure a job she loved, and purchase a home filled with her own belongings - ultimately living her best life.

"This project has... created this sisterhood among women that you know thought maybe they were all alone in what they were going through and now they realize they have other women they can relate to," Johs said.

The experience often leads to emotional responses, with many women crying tears of happiness upon seeing the final photos. Johs also hosts an annual celebration, the Goddess Gala , to honor women and the 40 over 40 Project.

The LUXE Booth is, in many ways, an extension of Johs' philosophy - everyone deserves to be celebrated and to have professional portraits they love.

Inspired by fashion photographers Irving Penn, Peter Lindbergh, and Mark Seliger and the Hollywood trend of black and white photos, Joh launched The LUXE Booth to deliver a modern red-carpet portrait experience.

At events, hosts choose between a luxe white or bold black backdrop. Unlimited prints are included, and with Johs' IT skills and behind-the-scenes help from her assistant extraordinaire, Sha-Ree Mason, the portraits are processed instantly using AI-enhanced software that smooths, refines and polishes the images before printing. The result: a finished, magazine-worthy portrait - printed within minutes.

The option of a LUXE Guestbook, using an iPad to capture handwritten messages from guests to digitally use in the guestbook, allows event hosts or the bride and groom to have a polished book filled with the memories and messages of their loved ones.

After the event, a 90-day online gallery makes sharing easy with everyone, so that anyone can download their images to share on social media, make a new homescreen wallpaper, or do anything with them.

While weddings are the most common bookings so far - with Johs even setting up the booth at her daughter's wedding - Johs envisions The LUXE Booth at corporate events, anniversaries, fundraisers and galas.

For Johs, it's not just about snapping quick pictures; it's about turning a night out into a memory that lasts.