Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ariel Hester. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ariel, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

I remember when I was young, “success” was such a black-and-white concept. I used to think, “If I can just have this, or achieve that, then I will be successful”. But as I’ve learned and as I’ve grown as a woman, as a wife, as a mom, and as a business owner, I’ve learned that success ISN’T just one simple, black and white thing. There are grey areas all over the idea of “success”.

I now believe that success… is failure.

Not quite the act of failing, but how you handle failure. Success is doing your best to meet the goals that you set for yourself and for your family. And success is also knowing how to pivot when things get hard or when the goalpost is moved. Success is building a business from nothing and being brave enough to believe that it will succeed, that the rewards will be worth the risks.

I believe that success, risk, and failure all go hand in hand. To truly feel like I am “successful” or “succeeding”, I need to know that I put in everything I could and I took risks. So much of what I have and am doing now is because of the risks I’ve taken. I’ve learned that in order to truly succeed in entrepreneurship, you have to be willing to take risks. And you also need to know how to pivot and handle the situations that come your way after you’ve taken those risks.

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve looked at my financials and wondered if this was right for me. There have been so many times I’ve struggled trying to get this business off the ground, and wondered if I would have been more successful if I sought work in another, more traditional field. But giving up on my dream for the “safe” option – without knowing I had done EVERYTHING I could do – seemed like the opposite of success for me.

On the flip side, I could be making loads of money, but if my client-service or my “personal touch” had faded, I don’t see that as being successful either. I believe that my business is successful when my family is happy and taken care of, but also when my clients are happy and taken care of. When my service is so good and such a blessing to people that they rave about their experience. They book me over and over again, they change their profile pictures to a pictures I had taken for them. Those are the things I’m working towards every day.

Ariel, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Ariel Hester and I am Family Photographer. And when I say I’m a “Family Photographer”, I don’t mean I only take pictures of families. What I mean is I take pictures of families through many stages of life. I work with families as they grow. Through anniversaries, through pregnancy, birth, milestones, birthdays, and family pictures. I WORK with families. Families of all shapes and sizes. I’ve built my business to where I am able to follow and work with my clients through so many different stages of life, and I LOVE it! I love being able to photograph a couple’s anniversary pictures, and their maternity pictures, and their kids’ milestone and birthday pictures and so many of their big moments! My work is my passion, and it’s how I connect with people. When people allow me to be a part of their big moments and their big milestones, it’s one of the greatest feelings in the world.

I didn’t start like this though. My husband and I started this business shortly after we got married. And at that time we would photograph everything and anything that came our way – parties, premieres, baptisms, we even followed a delivery truck around midtown Atlanta taking pictures of it for a gig to gain experience and exposure.

It wasn’t until I started working in different hospitals as a “Fresh 48” newborn photographer, that I found my passion. I would meet families during one of the most special times in their lives and I would get to know them, connect with them, photograph them, and present them with images that filled them with so much joy that it made ME happy. I connected with so many people who ended up wanting more pictures after the birth. Milestones, cake smashes, family pictures, etcetera. And I knew then that I had found my niche: telling a family’s stories through my “snapshots” of different milestones in their life.

One of the things I focus on most with my clients is their experience. I try to make my sessions fun, and personalized, and as luxurious as I can. I try my best to affirm my clients and to become their personal “hype woman” because confidence is so important when getting your pictures taken and I know how much of a difference it can make in the final images when you’re relaxed and confident. I hope that above all else my sincerity, my passion, and my creativity make a lasting impression on my clients and future clients.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I started photography in high school on the yearbook team. I never would have imaged it could be my career when I graduated. But, after I graduated and got married, my husband encouraged me to go for it. We started off together trying to learn and gain as much experience as possible. Online classes, workshops, and photographing everything and anything we could. I like to joke about how we once followed a Blue Apron truck around midtown Atlanta once, getting shots of it “in action” for a photography gig. But that was what we did at that time while we were learning, we took pretty much any photography gig we could find. Parties and events, church services and baptisms, I even got into food photography for a few years.

As I started finding my footing as a photographer in general, I started to ask myself what types of photos I REALLY wanted to take. The type of photography I would want to do every single day. A few years before the pandemic I got a job doing newborn photography in different hospitals throughout Atlanta and Gwinnett. I LOVED that job. I was able to shadow talented and experienced newborn photographers, I was able to get the safety training I needed, and I was able to connect with people like I never had before. I worked my way up from being a photographer, to being a trainer. All while continuing to build my business up on the side, “part-time”.

Through that experience I realized how much I loved working with and connecting with women and families going through such a monumental, and life-changing time in their life. I knew then that I wanted to niche down to working with families like that on a regular basis – I wanted to follow a family growing from start to finish; from being a couple, through pregnancy, and birth, and to their annual family and birthday photos.

During this time, my husband and I experienced some personal issues and loss while trying to build a family of our own. That pain pushed me even harder into my purpose. I realized how precious life, and time are. How quickly time can pass, and how suddenly your time with a loved one can be cut. I wanted to do my part to help people create and hold onto as many memories as they could. I realized how quickly things changed and people grew, and how important it was to be able to “freeze time” even for just a few moments for a picture.

I was actually planning on trying to continue to work my way up the ladder of the company I was working for – to become a district manager or a site supervisor for a whole hospital photography operation – but then the pandemic hit. Right before the pandemic, my husband and I had started the IVF process, and we did our transfer as soon as we had the all clear. Our daughter was born in 2021, and once I held her, I knew that even when the hospitals did allow me to come back, that I couldn’t. I wanted to soak up every minute I could with her. And the best way to do that, was to work for myself and create my own schedule.

We started building up our clientele – putting up flyers, handing out cards, connecting with people in “mom groups” online, and working on our social media presence. My husband had been working in social media at that time and building up that side of our business to the point where we finally felt comfortable working our business full-time. It was definitely a scary decision, but we had – and still have – faith, and each other, and we trust in God to continue to guide us.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Telling a story through photos has always been something that both inspired and excited me. It’s interesting because when I was younger, working in the arts was seen as irresponsible or a pathway straight to being a “starving artist”. But living in and exploring Atlanta – a city full of creatives that make more than enough to eat and live in abundance – and just making the decision that I was going to do this and be successful, I started realizing that working in the arts wasn’t a burden, it was a gift. There was unlimited potential. I could create as much as I wanted. Connect with as many clients as I wanted. Essentially, I could make as much money as I wanted too. I wasn’t limited by hours or salaries. And the sense of fulfillment I got from what I made was well worth it all. Seeing someone make my picture into their profile picture, having clients travel to me from out of state, having clients hire me over and over again because they love working with me that much, seeing my work getting so much better each year, business growing each year – it’s such an amazing feeling. It’s extremely rewarding and affirming for me.

But also being able to challenge myself and push my own creative limits is so rewarding. I love being able to try new themes, new concepts, new edits… when you work in an artistic or creative field the sky is literally the limit on what you can do and it makes me so happy and blessed to be able to work in this field.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.phoenixproductionsatl.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/phoenixproductionsatl
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/phoenixproductionsatl
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@phoenixphotographyatl Google: https://goo.gl/maps/TpSVnVgKb1T5sRxE9