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

Lucy, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

It’s most certainly never boring as a business owner in the freelance creative space. I’m so grateful and lucky to do what I do, with clients who trust me and value what I bring to the table. Nevertheless, when it comes to working in a creative capacity, the spectrum of good days to bad days occurs just like in any other job. Do I think I would be as happy doing something else? Absolutely not (and trust me, I’ve tried). Much like acting or any other passion pursuit, there have been times when working high-flexibility part-time jobs fueled my ability to take on projects—and those were the times I most often went to sleep wishing I could make photography work all the time.

Needless to say, I grew up with a unique perspective on creative entrepreneurship. With my father being a commercial photographer as well, I never felt there were limitations on what I could achieve with my business and, ultimately, how I get to experience working throughout my life.
I spent my formative years observing and assisting my father’s work, seeing how you can stretch and shapeshift—and that seemed like no better job for a restless person. One day we would be on set building worlds for product photography, and the next, we’d be inside a cataract surgical suite in Tanzania.

I think the key to being a happy business owner is gratitude for getting to work on something you’re passionate about and letting that be your metronome every day.

Lucy, 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?

I’m a freelance commercial photographer currently based in Salt Lake City, specializing in product photography, stop motion, and AI-forward imagery—but that’s certainly not where I began.
Initially, I loved architectural photography, and my first architectural job was something of a wild one: I worked on a contracted team of three photographers for a storage unit company, traveling around the U.S. to photograph their properties for web use. Over the course of three summers, I crammed over 800 properties across 25 states into my camera, and honestly, I’d do it again in a heartbeat. The job was crazy, exhausting, and required an extensive amount of logistical planning and travel for a 19-year-old, but these formative experiences truly set burgeoning creatives up for future success. After all, creative business ownership comes with a banker’s box of hats to wear.

Despite being able to safely shoot the storage unit project in 2020, the COVID era of home confinement had me tinkering—and eventually, I decided to give still life photography a shot. Essentially, I never stopped. I’m not sure if it was a side effect of the pandemic or just being cooped up, but some of my weirdest and scrappiest work came out of that time. My limited access to resources encouraged me from the start to dig deep into Photoshop and ensure there was nothing I couldn’t edit—and I’m grateful for that every day.

My work, my differentiators, my “things that make me, me” all boil down to trust and follow-through. Sure, I like to think my work feels uniquely my own, and that’s certainly a key contributor to what sets me apart. But at the end of the day, how many incredible photographers are out there who are equally, if not more, deserving of the work? What matters stretches far beyond creating beautiful and effective imagery. If you’re not focusing on client relationships, staying true to your word, communicating clearly about changes, or being brave enough to say when something won’t work, then you’re doing both your work and your clients a disservice.

Ultimately, I’m most proud of my growth as a creative. The ability to constantly look back at your work, learn, and stretch from it is paramount in this business. It allows me to make every shoot better than the last. Learning and change should be the lifeblood of every artist—something my father instilled in me. You should always be skating to where the puck is going. My delight in learning and adapting my approaches enables me to achieve my ultimate goal: creating that picture, that stop motion, that moment that stops a client or follower in their tracks, where the work is inherently felt.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Choosing a creative profession, I’ve found, can often be confusing and non-linear—not just for yourself but also for those around you. The day-to-day, the effort required, and the specifics of “what you actually do” might not always make sense to your cousin who’s a sales rep or your friend who’s a lawyer. Bills aren’t always paid on time, you might work from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m., and what sounds like a fun day of tinkering could actually be a stressful race to meet a deadline (even if it involves glitter and ribbons).
The takeaway here is that, at the end of the day, when your head hits the pillow, you are the one who has to feel satisfied with how you spent your time. Sometimes, the lack of understanding from others and the struggles of running your own business can amplify your imposter syndrome. Don’t let it!

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot I wish I had known earlier. My friend and I often talk about the idea of increasing your “luck surface area”—a term I believe was coined by entrepreneur Jason Roberts. I like to sum it up as this: the more opportunities you make yourself available for, the more opportunities will find you.
A few years ago, I was feeling completely lost in my photography career path. I was working at a grocery store, seeing the products and brands I loved—and would’ve died to work for—on the shelves. It felt so, so distant from the life I wanted. At some point, I realized that whatever I was doing clearly wasn’t getting me closer to my goals. I needed to be bolder in my approach. So, I started emailing photographers I admired, hoping some of them might offer guidance.
Eventually, one of them did. She was incredibly generous, sharing advice, resources, and even agency names. Thanks to her guidance, I landed a full-time job at Sircle Media, a Manhattan-based agency. I spent a few years there creating fun content alongside an incredibly talented team of creatives and my time there helped shaped my work and my portfolio into what it is today.
You—and the chances you’re willing to take—are ultimately your greatest resource!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lucyschoenfeld.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lucyschoenfeld/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-schoenfeld-2b7460133/

Image Credits

Lucy Schoenfeld Photography 2025