We were lucky to catch up with Shelby Sorensen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Shelby, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s jump right into the heart of things. Outsiders often think businesses or industries have much larger profit margins than they actually do – the reason is that outsiders are often unaware of the biggest challenges to profitability in various industries – what’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

Being a creative in a world where smart phones and AI have made access to creating more available for other people I have watched people begin to value hiring a professional to take their photos less and less. They fall in love with our work but when you give them a price quote for their branding images or their wedding day more often than not I get told that they are looking for someone cheaper – even if that means their experience isn’t there because “it can be fixed in post”. Once you decide to make photography your career not only are there your overhead expenses that go into your cost for your sessions but it is all of the continued education, the content days where everything is meticulously curated for the most aesthetically pleasing result, that we use for marketing ourselves an to ensure than even in the slow season we have content to post to ensure that we get busy again, to equipment upgrades and maintenance to always ensure that we are producing the best quality product without equipment delays making the turn around time slower. Our artistic eye is what got us started but having the equipment to deliver that higher quality product so you can make the prints and things are what will keep you in business.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I can’t recall how many times people have asked me what got me into photography. Why did I choose this life path? What made me want to pick up a camera in the first place? And while this is everything I’ve wanted to do and somehow so much more there still isn’t a linear path that took me down the road of pursing photography as a career, but what I’ve come to realize is that the best paths in life are never so clear cut.

From the time I can remember I’ve always wanted to create. As a young child I was infatuated with words; the more words on a page the better. I loved the stories I could create with them and emotions I could evoke; however, life had other plans for me. One accident after the next led me to suffer from several concussions — to the point where I don’t even remember all of them now — where words were simply beyond my reach and I had to find a new way to communicate what I was feeling and thinking when words just failed to come.

Now enter photography. A new medium for communicating that my previous infatuation with words had failed to allow me to see. I had always dabbled around with it a bit, taking my mom’s point and shoot camera out into the yard and photographing her flowers. Creating albums on my Facebook titled “Photography” that were filled with hundreds of photos of just flower pictures and not much else. Yet there was something there that was always pulling me back, something that kept me out in my yard for hours until the sun began to set and my bare feet were damp with dew.

It wasn’t until late in my high school career that I met my high school’s photography teacher and he opened up the world of photography for me beyond taking pictures of “just flowers”. Suddenly the sound of the shutter release set my soul on fire. The thrill of trying to capture a story or a feeling within one frame was intoxicating. I craved to create images that people could relate to and feel the emotion right along with my subjects. That was the potential I had been feeling all along every time I held that point and shoot and took it outside. That was the extra something I had been searching for during all of those hours. It was then that I decided to leave Washington behind and head out of state to pursue getting my Bachelors of Science in Photography. After four years in Flagstaff, Arizona of growing and learning and honing my craft and my passion for storytelling I returned to Seattle upon graduation to build my business back in the state that still had my heart.

I truly believe that everyone deserves to feel like the absolute best version of themselves when in front of my camera. I will be there to give you wardrobe advice, help you pick the perfect environment where your personality can shine, and hype you up while finding your best angles to help you put your best foot forward. I will be your photographic right hand during all of the big moments of your life and will make sure that your biggest days, like your wedding day, are as stress free as possible. Never far from my trusty fanny pack that has a never ending supply of snacks, band aids, scissors, eyelash glue — handier than you think — and many other miscellaneous odds and ends to help mend any snags along the way. I believe everyone deserves to love and to be loved. When you find your person, you should get to celebrate in whatever way you feel is best for you all while preserving those memories and feelings for you to be able to look back on for years to come.

People are my passion and I guarantee I will get misty eyed at least once during our session over how amazing you look and I will cry at your wedding. No matter your story or your vision of what you want to create, nothing is out of reach and I love turning people’s dreams into a reality.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Going to college for photography you have this endless pool of time to create to your hearts content. Anything you can think of you can make it happen without being forced to think of “will this make me money” or “what client will this attract”. Nothing feels like a waste of time because everything you do is pouring into your educational wealth of knowledge that you are there to expand upon and take advantage of to its fullest. Towards the end of my time at college I was definitely leaning more towards the fine art photography career path. I took a lot of inspiration from Brooke Shaden and Alex Stoddard who were making livings off of creating beautiful moving self portraits that evoked powerful emotions and I was convinced that is exactly what I would do too. However, then the pandemic hit, I graduated and moved states away back home. Everything was different. No one had expendable cash to indulge in art – we were all just surviving. But my passion still lied with people. Capturing people in all walks of life and those memories and those moments that are so fleeting they are hard to remember sometimes. Small backyard weddings were still taking place, people were still growing their families. I realized that I could still be the creative I always wanted to be by capturing these memories for people and now – four years later – it allows me the free time to create my other art when I want and for myself – again with the same worry free abandon of not wondering if it will make me money or get me a new client because it doesn’t have to and I think that is a beautiful thing.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

I really pride myself of trying to get to know my clients as much as possible before we actually meet for their photoshoot. That way not only can I greet them like an old friend to help put them at ease but it makes the transition into taking their photos so much easier and more natural than positioning them somewhere and telling them to smile at me. You get genuine smiles and laughter and next thing you know an hour has gone by and they never even knew it. It’s fostering these friendships and relationships that are usually how I get a lot of my new clients because any chance they get whether it is a family friend whose daughter is getting married or a post on a Facebook community page they are out there recommending me to other people and directing them towards my website.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.shelbyelisephotography.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/shelby.elise.photography