We recently connected with Victoria Miller and have shared our conversation below.
Victoria, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I started learning photography when I was just 3 years old. My parents had given me this big bulky kid’s film camera as a toy, and I loved it. I took everywhere with me. My subjects at the time were anything I found interesting – my favorite stuffed animals, my preschool friends, my little brother, and even our new house when we moved. When I was about 10 years old, I saved up all my money to buy a little Kodak digital camera that I used in much the same way, but my subjects transitioned towards pretty flowers and landscapes. When I was 16, I got my first DSLR camera and finally started doing portraits. First, I practiced with my little sister and then with friends and finally with paying clients near the end of high school. A lot of my learning was just time and practice, but I did take an intro to photography course at my community college which was really helpful for the technical stuff like understanding how to actually work my camera and using Photoshop and Lightroom. Taking photos was something I loved so it did not feel burdensome to take my camera with me everywhere and photograph everything which is really the best way to become better at photography. As I started to get more paying clients, I utilized YouTube to see what other photographers were doing and how to run a better and smoother business. Those early years money was a big obstacle. I wasn’t good enough to charge a lot, but I also did not have the money to invest in fancy courses that promised to solve all my problems, so I had to get creative. I followed as many luxury photographers as I could, and I would write down all their little tidbits of advice they shared randomly in their email newsletters and on social media. Every once in a while, they would offer a freebie template or webinar that I would immediately sign up for. But the thing that made my photography most successful was not really anything I learned from anyone else. My clients were hiring me because they liked me as person, and they could see the years of practice that came through in the way I shot. I think that would be my advice to newer photographers – just be you and don’t be afraid to take a million ugly photos in the pursuit of the one amazing one. You’ll have to spend many hours practicing and shooting, but your style and personality is what will draw others to your work and that is not something you can learn from anyone else. That is only something that can be learned the hard way through practice and dedication.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am a wedding and portrait photographer based in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. I photograph people who want their life documented in the most artistic yet authentic way possible. The core goal of my business is to “Capture your timeless memories”. When I started photography, it was just to keep a photo trail of the things I loved most in my life. Documenting everyday things alongside the extraordinary experiences. That is the feeling I aim to bring to my clients as well. When I photograph a family in their living room on the average Sunday afternoon I put just as much thought, time, and effort into it as I do when I am photographing a wedding day. I specialize at in-home documentary photography and backyard weddings. These are where I feel most connected to the visions of my clients. I use a mix of poses and prompts for part of my sessions but then structure them in a way that ensures authentic moments have room to happen. For weddings we don’t spend much time on recreating moments but rather letting them unfold naturally and capturing it as it happens. Sometimes this means the picture isn’t lit the best or not everyone had the perfect expression, but I have found that my clients consistently prefer those photos to staged ones, because they are real and have a real memory connected to it. In the age of perfectly curated Instagram feeds more and more people are coming back to authenticity and what it means to be honest about their life and circumstances and that is really the core of my photography.
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.
Putting the art above the profit can be a challenging idea. It was challenging idea even for myself before starting a business based on my art. It’s not that photography or art in general cannot be profitable, it can be very lucrative if done right, but the very nature of art means it must be pursued first by passion. Art is a form of expression, and it cannot easily be forced to be better. It must be nurtured and practiced whether you are getting paid for it or not. There are many times in my life where I work for free or very little and it is not because I don’t know my “worth” but exactly the opposite. I know my art is worth doing even when I hit my slow patches. So, I do something creative even if means I have to spend money to make it happen and that the only benefit is that I feel inspired again. In other words – I create art for art’s sake. Art is good for the world. It is something that brings people pleasure simply for the sake of pleasure itself. We do not need art to survive, but we certainly need it to live a full life. We can live in square house, but a beautifully designed house brings us more joy. We can live with bare walls, but walls adorned with beautiful painted landscapes and photos of our loved ones makes us happy. We can work in silence but singing or listening to music makes us feel better. In our culture art is so entwined with our everyday lives that we can take it for granted, but to stop pursing art for art’s sake would be to stop pursing the thing that makes life fuller and more beautiful.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
Photography as a business is a relativity low investment up front compared to many start-ups. I saved up for a couple years while working my full time 9-5 job as a hotel housekeeper. My first year in business my total expenses were just under $10,000. My new mirrorless camera and lenses were most of that, coming out to around $7000. I also invested in a new desktop computer and monitor that would be able to run my editing programs which was about $1500, and the rest of the expenses were relatively small. A website and domain is about $400/year, Photoshop & Lightroom are about $300/year, my business license fee is about $10/year and insurance is about $500/year. There are other things I have bought over the years that help my business run smoother but were not necessary for starting out. In fact, not even the website or the new computer were totally necessary. I had been doing paid photo sessions for years without those things, but as I took the leap into starting an official business, I knew having the right equipment would a make difference in the long run and I am so glad I saved up and invested into the things that I did.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.victorianatalephotography.com/
- Instagram: @Torialynne
- Facebook: Victoria Natale Photography
Image Credits
Victoria Natale Miller