We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sarah Lisle a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sarah, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One deeply underappreciated facet of being an entrepreneur or creative is the kind of crazy stuff that happens from time to time. It could be anything from a disgruntled client attacking an employee or waking up to find out a celebrity gave you a shoutout on TikTok – the sudden, unexpected hits (both positive and negative) make the profession both exhilarating and exhausting. Can you share one of your craziest stories?

The craziest thing about my otherwise pretty normal photography business is that I have had to completely relocate and rebuild my business six times since I first began in 2013.

Being a military spouse, I knew there were going to be professional sacrifices and compromises to be made for our family. However, that didn’t make the frustration and exhaustion with each move any easier for my business. Marketing is not my favorite aspect of my job and sometimes we were only in a location for 6 months, so I occasionally found myself seriously contemplating just giving up. However, I’m so glad that I persevered each time and continued to do what I love to do. I’ve learned so much about building a business, and I’m so grateful for the experience I’ve gained, as well as the appreciation for other businessel owners.

For a little background into some of what is involved with relocating a business, it’s important to realize that it’s not just about meeting and finding new clients, but also developing a level of trust within your community. You have to figure out the needs of your new market and factor your pricing accordingly. It also includes scheduling meetings with lawyers and accountants to make sure you’re following all the local laws.

Another hard reality with relocating your business often is continuing to get inquiries and referrals from past locations after you’ve moved. Even after changing all my location and SEO metrics on my sites, I still got calls or messages from prospective clients in New York 3 years after I moved. I look at that now as a sign of the trust and reputation I built during my time there, but it always makes me a little sad that I can’t continue to serve the same families over the years.

Despite the challenges that come with this lifestyle, I’ve also had the unique opportunity to really focus on my priorities as a business owner, and reevaluate them often. I’ve also had to revise my definition of success. Instead of thinking success means making X amount of money a year, or booking out my weekends, I’ve found success when I have the confidence to charge my value in a new place. For me, success is being brave enough to say no to sessions that aren’t my true passion, even though the money is enticing. Success is seeing improvement in my work over months and years, and pushing boundaries and trying new things, even while I’m trying to get clients to hire me in a new location.

Sarah, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Of course! I’m a lifestyle portrait photographer based in Littleton, Colorado, and I serve the greater Denver and Colorado Springs areas.

As a teenager, I was always curious and maybe even a bit jealous of peers in high school that would take beautiful and artistic photos with their “fancy cameras” and post them on Facebook, and I secretly dreamed of creating beautiful work like them. During my senior year, while serving as the yearbook editor, we had a camera break and the teacher said it wasn’t worth it to pay to fix it, so he offered for me to just take it. I saved up, eventually got the camera fixed, and started my business the same year. My dream had finally come true! I photographed anything and everything that people wanted me to – weddings, senior portraits, roommate pictures, etc. I also took a photography course in college to help me learn more of the fundamentals that I knew I was missing.

Over time, and probably heavily influenced by my experience teaching as an elementary teacher and being a mother to my own children, I fell in love with capturing families – particularly showcasing love and connection between people. That singular feature is what drives my passion for my work. A favorite quote that illustrates this is: “There is no love, there are only proofs of love. Whatever love I feel in my heart, others will only see in my action.” To me, photographing those tangible evidences of love and connection between people is my way to show others how truly loved and special they are. So today, I love to photograph families, newborns, maternity, and couples. Basically any group or pairing of people that share love, I want to show that love to them through my photos.

Most recently, I’ve fallen in love with infusing color and different techniques to add a unique style to my portraits, and I’ve also fallen in love with supporting and working with other business owners. The combination of those two things has led me to dive into the world of branding and business headshots, and I’m so excited to show the hard work, creativity, and power behind other businesses. I basically aspire to be a walking advertisement for all the other cool businesses in my area.

What’s unique about my work, compared to other photographers, is my incorporation of bright colors, otherwise unnoticed and intimate details, and lots of natural connection. I also heavily use my background in education to structure and tailor my photoshoots to be developmentally appropriate and fun for everyone. My clients always tell me that I make photoshoots feel natural and fun for both toddlers, teenagers, and grumpy dads alike.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me, I’ve always thought of myself as an artist, and I truly believe every single person is creative – it’s a fundamental feature of being human. Aside from just loving the reward of practicing my creativity, and feeling the fulfillment of that, I would have to say that the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is watching my children believe that they are also artists. Last year my daughter brought home a mother’s day gift with a “fill in the blank” sheet all about me. In response to the prompt ‘what does your mom always say?’ my daughter responded “everyone is an artist.” That was probably the most rewarding thing I’ve expereinced as an artist up to this date.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I touched on this a bit earlier, but something I had to unlearn was how to define success. While rebuilding my clientele from scratch after each move, I’ve had to make the choice to really figure out what success looked like for me. I found when I focused on the stereotypical measures of success: fame, money, busy schedules, etc. I felt empty and unimportant in my work, and I felt like throwing in the towel and giving up. After a while I realized I could either truly believe that was what success was, and give up, or I could redefine success for myself, and find happiness again in my work and my business. So for me, success is: having the confidence to charge my value, pushing boundaries and trying new things, saying no to clients/sessions that don’t value or connect with my business and work, focusing on the improvements I’ve made over the years, and consistently delivering a beautiful product that I love to my clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sarahlislephotography.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarah.lisle.photo/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahlislephotography
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-j-lisle/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp42JTxSyK4yNQzLxuc0sCQ
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/sarah-lisle-photography-littleton

Image Credits
Sarah Lisle Photography