Mentor Interview
1. What made you want to follow a career of photography?
I took a class my junior year of high school, it was just a black and white dark room photography class and I just fell in love with it. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do since I took that class. I went to school for it and thought I was going to be a black and white landscape photographer, that was my plan, but when I went to school I fell in love with portrait photography. My husband Matt then convinced me that starting a business would be better than working for someone else. So here we are, eight years later with our own portrait studio, which is pretty cool.
2. What are some of the favorite things about your job?
My most favorite thing is to shoot pictures, to actually go out and work with my clients and take pictures of them. My second favorite part is showing them their images because I think it’s pretty cool for people to see what everyone else sees about them that makes them so amazing. Though there isn’t really a whole lot that I don’t like about my job so pretty much everything is a favorite for me.
3. What are some challenges you have faced?
Bookkeeping is one of them. I only took maybe one business class in school and didn’t really know anything about running a business until I started one. It’s been a lot of trial and error and a big learning experience. Learning QuickBooks was interesting, to put it in a positive way.
4. Has the business of professional portrait photography changed since you started? If so, in what ways?
Definitely. I came into it after it had transitioned to digital so I’ve only been in business with digital photography. I shot film before, how it worked was you’d shoot a role of film, send it off to the lab and the lab would do your printing, your color corrections and get your retouching and everything done, you wouldn’t do any of that stuff. You would own the negative images and your clients would order the prints and products from you. But now that digital has come about the photographers themselves process the images, color correct them and retouch them. With digital it’s also really easy to make a copy of an image so people can purchase them. So now you don’t have that one original negative file anymore you can make millions of copies of the same photo. For a few years the client only wanted the digital file of their image but now it has moved back to the client directly ordering prints from the photographer.
5. Did you study portrait photography in college?
I did, I have a Bachelors degree in photography. I studied lots of different genres and did everything that you could think of. Which was kind of nice because I got to try everything and really figure out what I liked best. I did have two specific portrait classes, I had a standard portrait class and then a wedding class
6. What are some of the most important skills you have learned throughout your career as a professional photographer?
Having a really strong foundation in the technical side of photography, knowing why your camera does what it does. How aperture, shutter speed, ISO and how all you different lenses work together is a really good skill because if there is something that is not working then you know how to fix it. Also being able to hone your creative skills and being flexible with whatever situation comes at you. You still need to be able to create what you want even if the conditions aren’t exactly how you wanted them to be. The more experience I got, the more confident I got and then the better my pictures got. Once I realized that I really did know what I was doing, that people could trust me, it made a big difference.
7. If you could change one thing about your job what would it be?
There isn’t really anything I would want to change about my job. I basically love every aspect of it. Though there are some things that are constantly changing on their own such as technical upgrades and business strategy changes.
8. What advice would you give to an amateur photographer aspiring to become a professional?
Doing what you’re doing, interning with people who are in the profession because you can learn a lot from what you’re doing and apply it to what you want to do and what you don’t want to do. A had a bunch of mentors in school and even after school, which made a really big difference for me. Also constantly adapting to changes that happen within the world of photography. For making a living through photography doing some business classes is a really good idea. Because you don’t necessarily have to go to school for the photography portion anymore learning business would be my biggest pieces of advice. Using and referring to as many experts as you can will make a big difference. Such as hiring a CPA to help set you up with the right business structure and file your taxes correctly, which has made a huge difference for us. Being able to use resources that are there for you is a really good idea.
I took a class my junior year of high school, it was just a black and white dark room photography class and I just fell in love with it. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do since I took that class. I went to school for it and thought I was going to be a black and white landscape photographer, that was my plan, but when I went to school I fell in love with portrait photography. My husband Matt then convinced me that starting a business would be better than working for someone else. So here we are, eight years later with our own portrait studio, which is pretty cool.
2. What are some of the favorite things about your job?
My most favorite thing is to shoot pictures, to actually go out and work with my clients and take pictures of them. My second favorite part is showing them their images because I think it’s pretty cool for people to see what everyone else sees about them that makes them so amazing. Though there isn’t really a whole lot that I don’t like about my job so pretty much everything is a favorite for me.
3. What are some challenges you have faced?
Bookkeeping is one of them. I only took maybe one business class in school and didn’t really know anything about running a business until I started one. It’s been a lot of trial and error and a big learning experience. Learning QuickBooks was interesting, to put it in a positive way.
4. Has the business of professional portrait photography changed since you started? If so, in what ways?
Definitely. I came into it after it had transitioned to digital so I’ve only been in business with digital photography. I shot film before, how it worked was you’d shoot a role of film, send it off to the lab and the lab would do your printing, your color corrections and get your retouching and everything done, you wouldn’t do any of that stuff. You would own the negative images and your clients would order the prints and products from you. But now that digital has come about the photographers themselves process the images, color correct them and retouch them. With digital it’s also really easy to make a copy of an image so people can purchase them. So now you don’t have that one original negative file anymore you can make millions of copies of the same photo. For a few years the client only wanted the digital file of their image but now it has moved back to the client directly ordering prints from the photographer.
5. Did you study portrait photography in college?
I did, I have a Bachelors degree in photography. I studied lots of different genres and did everything that you could think of. Which was kind of nice because I got to try everything and really figure out what I liked best. I did have two specific portrait classes, I had a standard portrait class and then a wedding class
6. What are some of the most important skills you have learned throughout your career as a professional photographer?
Having a really strong foundation in the technical side of photography, knowing why your camera does what it does. How aperture, shutter speed, ISO and how all you different lenses work together is a really good skill because if there is something that is not working then you know how to fix it. Also being able to hone your creative skills and being flexible with whatever situation comes at you. You still need to be able to create what you want even if the conditions aren’t exactly how you wanted them to be. The more experience I got, the more confident I got and then the better my pictures got. Once I realized that I really did know what I was doing, that people could trust me, it made a big difference.
7. If you could change one thing about your job what would it be?
There isn’t really anything I would want to change about my job. I basically love every aspect of it. Though there are some things that are constantly changing on their own such as technical upgrades and business strategy changes.
8. What advice would you give to an amateur photographer aspiring to become a professional?
Doing what you’re doing, interning with people who are in the profession because you can learn a lot from what you’re doing and apply it to what you want to do and what you don’t want to do. A had a bunch of mentors in school and even after school, which made a really big difference for me. Also constantly adapting to changes that happen within the world of photography. For making a living through photography doing some business classes is a really good idea. Because you don’t necessarily have to go to school for the photography portion anymore learning business would be my biggest pieces of advice. Using and referring to as many experts as you can will make a big difference. Such as hiring a CPA to help set you up with the right business structure and file your taxes correctly, which has made a huge difference for us. Being able to use resources that are there for you is a really good idea.