Commercial Stories to Love Stories

(In reference to your 20’s) Now’s the time to be massively risk-oriented and try everything you want to try. There’s no “wrong” move you can make. If you genuinely want to spend every minute working like I did, great. If you want to travel to Bali or work in a vineyard in Tasmania, great. Now is the time to go have different experiences and try different jobs until you find one you like. – Gary Vaynerchuk.

Before I even knew who Gary Vaynerchuk was, I was taking his advice. There’s a long-running joke of the number of jobs I had in high school (spanning an entire strip mall) because I got bored fast. Once I learned how to do a job I was ready to start a new one and learn something different. It was a drive to learn new things and find a place where I was needed.

It seems that not a lot changes even as you get older. While my jobs have lasted longer since high school, through my twenties I’ve experimented with jobs transitioning from graphic design out of college into marketing and then starting my own photography business. Just like all the other jobs I’ve had to find where I fit into the photography world.

For some of you who have been with me along this journey, you know that I’ve been focusing on commercial photography over the last few years. A passion for serving small businesses and giving my knowledge of graphic design and marketing. However, after talking with so many businesses I found that the market wasn’t a match, but that my portrait photography was a growing business without me noticing it had even happened.

Ironically, it was catalog shoots with a focus on people that I enjoyed the most in commercial photography. But what I loved was telling stories. Something that doesn’t go away in capturing love stories.

The transition to portrait photography felt like an easy one but in some ways made me feel like a fraud. What I had to learn was that like all learning processes there is a road that takes us to our destination. My journey had me walking through a multitude of different jobs and then different areas of photography. But the lessons I’ve learned from these steps along the way have made me more prepared to capture your story in a way that will leave you with timeless photos you’ll cherish forever.

My journey to portrait photography was less of a straight line and more of a child’s scribbles. But where I am now feels like where I was always supposed to end up, telling your story of love in a way that you can pass down for generations to come.