Ardent Photography Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

Many people are surprised to learn that neither Rick nor myself went to school formally for photography or business. Wedding photography is a trade through and through and can be learned through hard work, learning all you can and getting yourself out there with clients willing to let you practice your craft. We like the joke that I am self taught and Rick is ‘Steph taught’. We absolutely love what we do and to learn it we read every book, attended workshops, seminars, second shot and took any and all work that came our way. We were passionate about photography not just being about equipment, you can’t by creativity, viewpoint or experience. Before upgrading anything we owned we really tried to master knowing everything about it and made sure we were able to use each piece or equipment to its full potential. If we found it was holding us back, we upgraded! We try to give back to this profession we love by helping others. We offer both a photography and wedding specific photography workshops, invite along third shooters and interns and try to make every ‘lunch to chat’ about photography that we can.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

In 2018 I was diagnosed with Lupus. For the past 6 months prior to my diagnosis we had failed to receive a single new client inquiry. At the time I remember thinking we were in the middle of a financial trial. Photography is interesting as every year you aren’t guaranteed that you will be in business. Each summer you attract a new clientele that fills next seasons calendar. Going months without an inquiry was a BIG deal. After my diagnosis however it turned out to be such a blessing. There was much to be learned about how much I could handle work wise and processes needed to be in place to not have our clients effected by this health change. God so faithfully provided through smaller portrait sessions that paid all of our bills. Being open to all types of work and not just limiting ourselves to a single genre has made it possible for different seasons and ebbs and flows when it comes to work.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Social media is such a weird thing… especially for photography. Everyone is going to love photos from the happiest times of their lives and friends and family are always going to tell them how great of a job their photographers did. This is the same for images shared on our own social media. One thing I am grateful for however is that early on in our career God just impressed on our hearts that we wouldn’t be where we are without the amazing people who hire us. Any marketing, image sharing, blogging etc is all about THE CLIENTS. I think people can feel this and thing it is refreshing to read THEIR stories and not just bragging or hyping ourselves up. I think when you share in this fashion, people WANT to follow you. I mean who doesn’t love true love am I right? Advice would probably be knowing who your target audience is and what social media they use. We built our business originally on Facebook and Twitter, No Instagram is the thing, but Tik Tok is right around the corner nudging that out. Learning the different platforms and setting up0 a process to have things flow through keeps our social media pressence lively. Don’t have social media accounts if you aren’t going to post and post often!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ardentphotographyinc.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/ardentphoto
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/ardentphotographying

Image Credits
Ardent Photography