We recently connected with Rachel Faulls and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Rachel, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?
Being a photographer who mainly focuses on weddings and family portraits, I pray and hope that my legacy for decades to come is that I was able to capture exactly how a moment felt in time so that future generations can be transported to that singular day / event. As someone who has faced a lot of loss in her life, and especially in the last 10 years, I’ve been humbly reminded time and time again at just how important photographs are. They capture not only the appearance of the subject, but when done properly, also their essence. Using film mediums and allowing my own emotional experiences to motivate my craft, I do my best to capture the moments you never want to forget: be it baby feet inside their parents hands or your grandmother tearing up at your wedding ceremony. I hope I am remembered as someone who helps others transcend time and space. I hope I am remembered as someone who never let a moment go by unnoticed. I hope I am remembered by my deep feelings and heart for the little sentimental things.
Rachel, 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 Rachel Joy-Monet Faulls (my business is actually named after my middle names!) and I own Joy-Monet Photography. My husband, Nathan, and I work full time together as a team capturing weddings, couples, and families on digital, super 8 video, 35mm, medium format, and polaroid film. We travel the country (and hopefully someday the world!) telling other people’s stories so that they may be shared and handed down to future generations.
Fun fact, my childhood nursery bathroom was actually my dad’s black and white film darkroom! My family jokes that I’ve had developer and stop bath chemicals in my blood ever since. I became enchanted with the art of photography in high school and upon graduating used my graduation money to buy my first digital camera. I was lucky enough to study at the University of Kentucky school of Art and Visual studies with a major in Art Studio. I focused my major on photography and figure drawing as well as fiber art and art history. I feel that I’ve been able to channel this pure artistic approach to what I do in commercial photography by focusing on gathering my client’s stories, working with alternative mediums, and limiting my workload (a lesson I’m learning in year 8 of my business).
I am so proud of the growth I have made in my 8 years of business. What started as a young college girl with a day dream has become my every waking moment. I am so honored to continue this career with my greatest friend and muse, my husband. I am so proud of the boundaries I have drawn, the lessons I have incorporated into my client interactions, my self taught knowledge on all things social media and SEO, as well as the final images we are now delivering to our clients. I have never felt so fully embodied in the commercial work I am making.
We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.
It did! What started as my college side hustle to help me pay rent and buy groceries has turned into the only full time job I’ve had post-grad (I graduated in 2018). One of the biggest points that helped me launch my career was assisting other full time photographers living the dream I had. I volunteered, took work for little to no pay, gave it my all, made connections with everyone I encountered on the job, put myself out there, talked about my dream for my future, and was able to build evergreen relationships with fellow artists as well as future clients. Going full time didn’t come without risk though. After graduating, I had to really sit down and put a pen to paper on my personal and business budgets. $1,800 a year on coffee wasn’t going to cut it anymore. Trips to Whole Foods and Fresh Market were dwindled down. I was selling gear I no longer needed just so I could upgrade to the next best thing. I was doing side work like babysitting and still second shooting to make ends meet. Getting married and combining incomes with my husband was helpful for a time until we decided he could exit corporate America all together and join me in running the business. There were many nights I laid awake crunching numbers in my head of how we would profit from our work. I invested in business coaching. That is one of the singular points I can recognize as a shift in my confidence and workflow. Having a third party look at my profit and loss sheets, my proposals for potential clients, and the value of my final product truly helped launch me into knowing my worth and charging for it. Now, we live in a little apartment in our dream neighborhood. We skip on excessive grocery trips. We budget. We charge what we are worth. We welcome clients who are not a good fit for us so we can direct them to someone we know confidently can care for them, instead of morphing our business around their expectations.
Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?
I absolutely love this question. I think the gift of social media in our modern age can absolutely be a tool to bring others together rather than separate. I personally incorporate a good balance of my personal and work life on my business’s Instagram and Facebook pages. I run a personal TikTok with content from my life, lessons I’m learning, books I’m reading, products I’m buying, to help my audience feel closer to me. I just recently started re-vamping my email list, which I used to only use for updates about work, to share some weekly long form observations from my life. Some weeks its just a collection of songs and Pinterest photos that are inspiring me. Other times I’m sharing my personal short stories. I’ve gotten lots of great feedback from followers and clients alike that they love these personal touches coming straight to their inbox every Monday morning.
We also have started sending welcome packages and thank you boxes to all of our wedding clients, our highest investment point in our business. We include hand written cards, crystals, mini candles from P.F. Candle Co, custom USB drives with their high res photos and videos, all marked with our branding throughout. We’ve found that there is still something so intimate and special about a direct paper trail back to your clients.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://joymonetphotography.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachel_joy_monet/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joymonetphotography
- Other: Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/joymonetphotography
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@racheljoymonetfaulls?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc
Image Credits
all photos taken by myself!