We recently connected with Sarah Halferty and have shared our conversation below.

Sarah, appreciate you joining us today. One deeply underappreciated facet of entrepreneurship is the kind of crazy stuff we have to deal with as business owners. Sometimes it’s crazy positive sometimes it’s crazy negative, but crazy experiences unite entrepreneurs regardless of industry. Can you share a crazy story with our readers?

I have been a photographer for 18 years so I have lots of crazy wedding stories. I decided to get out of full time wedding photography and not do as many when my last wedding I was second shooting the bride did a keg stand in her wedding dress and wanted a picture of it. That same wedding an underage cousin got alcohol poisoning and had to go to the hospital in the ambulance, all in front of grandma who was horrified. At that point I decided I was really tired of doing wedding that only involved alcohol like that and decided to go into ministry with my photography and traveled overseas to Papua New Guinea with my photography.
I was there for 3 years and experienced a lot of crazy things, like living in a village for 2 months, spraining my ankle and being carried up a mountain on coffee bags. I also got the opportunity to go on a helicopter to capture a remote village on the side of a mountain one time and I got really sick in the helicopter because it was such a wild ride! But I still had to get the footage so I threw up in a bag and continued shooting from the helicopter (this was before drones were super popular). So yeah it just depends on what kind of story you’re looking for!!

Sarah, 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 Sarah Halferty and I was born in Texas but lived most of my childhood overseas in South Korea. I am a graduate from UT Arlington with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography and have been photographing since high school photography club. I started photographing weddings and portraits right out of high school and since then my career has morphed into so much more! My career began as a full time wedding photographer for 7 years but then in 2012 I began doing video and graphic design for ministries and nonprofits and I feel like all this experience has made me a very well rounded media specialist! I’ve gotten to travel the world with my photography and videography and my passion is to tell stories for ministries, churches and nonprofits that can help them get the word out about what God is doing around the world. Now I run my own business as well as work part time for a ministry for international students and I do all of their social media, graphic design, photography and video.

A little bit about me: I love Jesus, my husband and our 2 kids that are here and our beautiful boy in heaven. I love to travel, cook Korean food, and curl up and watch a show with my husband. Whether I am shooting a portrait session or a branding video, I always have fun. I love working with kids and families and I try to go out of my way to make my clients feel comfortable when we are working together. A lot of the time I’m the person who’s known to not just photograph the day, but go out of my way to make my clients feel special and cared for my fixing their hair or pin their dress (for my wedding clients). Whatever needs to be done!

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

The best source for new clients has been online mom groups or just simply word of mouth from other clients. In person networking never fails to be the best place to get the most clientele for me, wherever I go I’m always marketing my business.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I run social media for myself but also like 6 other accounts for the ministry I work for. I wouldn’t say that I’m a expert because I’m always learning and always trying to keep up with the trends but for the ministry I work for I increased their following from 500 to 2500 and that was simply from posting every day consistently and posting quality content. I post 5 days a week for the ministry I work for on meta so it’s posting on Facebook and Instagram. And I just started a TikTok for them so I’m still working on growing that. I think just consistency of a personality behind the brand is key to social media these days.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sarahhalferty.com/
• Instagram: @sarahhalfertyphotography
• Facebook: @sarahhalfertyphotography
• Youtube: @sarahhalfertyvideo

Image Credits

The formal headshots were from Chloie.Dawn , the one shot of me shooting with long hair (long lens) is Lightly Photography