We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Krista Miller . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Krista below.
Krista, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?
I love this question because I don’t think I’ve ever had the chance to quite talk about this moment in the way I wanted to.
It’s a memory for me that starts all the way back in 2006 or so. My best friend’s parent’s had just purchased a lake house on Lake Oconee in Greensboro, Georgia. Mind you, this was a time before smart phones. We were lucky if we had enough signal to call anyone once we arrived (honestly, I miss the feeling of being totally unplugged). The biggest restaurant around back then was a Waffle House on the corner and a Mellow Mushroom Pizza. I’m pretty sure even Blockbuster still existed. Marisa and her family and I would spend weeks at a time at that lake house every summer until we finished college in 2015.
The house was nestled between a stretch of other townhomes. Our days looked like this: sleep in, eat a well balanced breakfast of whatever pizza was left over from the night before, lather up with sunscreen, and then get out on the boat for hours and hours. We spent every spring break, three-day-weekend, and 4th of July on the water where we’d watch the fireworks while anchored on the sand bars right outside the swim-up restaurants. As boy-obsessed teenagers, Marisa and I would get excited whenever a family with a cute son would move next door and make any excuse to talk to them or get invited on their boat. We’d spend afternoons moseying into Madison, GA, the local small town with great food and lots of southern charm. We would watch movies on the Olson’s old VHS player, jam to whatever punk-rock CD we recently burned (likely containing a mix of Fall Out Boy and Bullet for My Valentine), and tear through her dad’s iPod filled with scrumptious, undiscovered rock and roll (he always did have the best taste in music). Before Lake Oconee became a developed area, there was no light pollution for miles. Marisa and I would spend nights out on the dock–still in our bathing suits with hoodies on top–watching the shooting stars and talking about life. We spent our formative years making memories at this house. It’s where we laughed the hardest, got through the rough patches, spent the best quality times with friends, learned our limits with alcohol…it’s even where I shared my first kiss with my now husband.
Over the years, loads and loads of friends and family visited that lake house. The once blank walls became decorated with dozens of photos of the memories we made over time. If I’m being completely honest, that house always felt like “mine” even if I wasn’t an Olson by blood. I guess that’s what over 26 years of friendship gives you. That’s why it was really quite devastating to hear that the Olson’s were planning to sell the lake house in the next year or two.
Fast forward to 2016, the year I was getting ready to go to PA school for my Master’s in Augusta, GA. For those of you who don’t know the area, Augusta is only about an hour or so from Lake Oconee. The month before I started school, my family hosted a huge BBQ (I’m talking a guest list of 90, it might as well have been a small wedding) to celebrate and send me off right. I remember being completely caught off guard when guests starting bringing me gifts–all I wanted was to spend time with my favorite people before I started this next phase of life! At one point, Marisa’s mom handed me a small card. When I went to open it, a bedazzled key shaped like a cat was taped inside with a message that read, “Our little piece of paradise.” Now, those who know me know that I am NOT one to show emotion. But I choked up right there on the spot. The Olsons knew how much that house meant to me, and now I was free to use it whenever I wanted.
For the last two years of the lake house “being in the family,” I shuttled all of my PA classmates up to Oconee several times where we’d rent jet skis, have way too much fun, and study. There were numerous weekends when I would just go up to the lake by myself to study peacefully by the pool or under the roof of the porch while it rained. With every visit, I knew that the Olsons were closer and closer to selling the place. And I have a small feeling that they kept it long enough for my now-husband to meet me there one weekend and propose.
The weekend the house sold in 2018 was very bittersweet. We all felt like we had just said goodbye to a very long-time, good friend. To this day I still think about the kindness of that gesture of giving me a key to such a beautiful place. The generosity showed by the Olsons is something I carry with me daily and try to apply to my everyday life. They didn’t just give me a key, but a safe space to grow up, make core memories, and share with other people I loved. And in a lot of ways, that’s also what I hope to give my clients–a safe space to be themselves and make beautiful memories. One day, I plan to buy that house back to keep it in the family once again.
Krista, 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?
What started as a general hobby and love of photography has now blossomed into over 12 years of experience and 10 years of shooting weddings all over the country (and Canada!). Balancing two careers as a physician assistant and traveling photographer has not been easy at all, but it is always worth it. I know I’ve mentioned this in a previous article, but I think it lends well to say again. Working in two careers–one in surgical medicine and one in a creative field centered around capturing memories–gives me a pretty unique perspective. Having worked with people during the happiest times of their lives while also dedicating my time to patients in their lowest, sickest periods makes me a better photographer and business owner because I have come to appreciate the full circle. I KNOW now how important it is to have photos with your loved ones because they won’t always be there, and while there is always an heir of sadness attached to an email from a client stating that their grandparent recently passed away, I am fulfilled knowing that they treasure the last photo taken of them at their wedding.
I want my personal brand to reflect a sense of care and dedication to my clients–that while life is often fragile and too short, we can still make the most fun out of our time here. What I am most proud of in what I have created here is not necessarily about financial success, but more about the community of AMAZING humans I now get to call friends. My couples are not only beautiful, but they are rad, fun, smart, and straight up changing the world. The “friend-ors” I surround myself with are also Grade A+ people who care about their craft. You can tell that they were put on this earth to do that one thing. I love seeing other people thrive in what they were meant to do.
If there is something I’d want readers to walk away with, it’s that I always take care of my people, that your story matters, and you’re perfect the way you are!
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
Non-creatives may not always understand just what it’s like to put yourself out there and hope people like you. And that’s what we’re doing…constantly.
For a normal person when they do a job, they’re setting out to complete a task that likely has more to do with the company they work for rather than themselves. For a creative, it’s the complete opposite. We are putting our work out there and laying ourselves bare for the world to see with each photo, painting, piece of writing, song, and more. And it’s HARD to let others “see” you, and rarely does it get easier.
Not only are we showing people something deeply personal, but we are also trying to juggle the tasks of a business owner. Social media management is a huge task in itself and the parameters are constantly changing. And, we have SEVERAL platforms to keep up with at a time. We have Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Pinterest, our own websites, etc. It’s frustrating to work so hard on something only for it not to reach the desired target audience. Plus, we’re trying to do taxes, keep up with the CODB, write up contracts, keep up with making sure those contracts get signed, write up timelines and nail down final details for every individual client, maintain our equipment, create personalized albums and prints, plan for travel accommodations, stress about making sure we make it to those travel accommodations, edit a monster-sized gallery of thousands of photos, deliver beautifully branded packaging, all on top of making our clients feel special and important amongst all of the chaos that goes into being a one-person show. PLUS the imposter syndrome is always real. I can’t tell you how often I look back at a gallery and think, “wow, I could have photographed this differently here.” And hey, maybe that’s me being hypercritical. Or maybe it makes me a better business owner because I’m always looking to improve. Who really knows.
As a non-creative looking into the scope of what a creative does on the daily basis, they may only see the surface-level image, “wow, what a pretty picture! You must have a nice camera!” What they don’t see, if they were to look closer, is the literal thousands of hours spent perfecting our craft. It’s taken me over ten years to confidently and comfortably pose and direct clients in a natural way, as well as hone my editing. It took a LOT of time. So really, the TIME taken to master our craft is what a non-creative person may initially misjudge about a creative person. While many of us may have a natural aptitude for art or good ideas, our first draft is rarely a masterpiece. We’ve all stumbled during a client meeting, trying to make someone feel comfortable in front of the camera, dealing with unhappy people, how the heck to ACTUALLY file taxes correctly–but it has all improved with time. And in that passage of time, most creatives will also hopefully learn their worth and charge what they deserve–because your time doing whatever creative thing you do is really the most important resource here that you can give your clients, and that’s what people need to understand. The art may be good, but their time spent making the art good is what’s important here.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
I think that one of the main way’s I’m able grow clientele is actually by LIMITING clientele. This way, I’m able to show up at 100% energy for my people 100% of the time because I’m hyper focused on my select number of couples and families.
Wedding photography in particular is both very physically and emotionally demanding. I’m often traveling for long days, only to wake up early the following for a 12-14hour wedding day. Weeks before the wedding, I’m talking my couples off of the ledge and finding them a new vendor who cancelled on them last minute as well as helping them nail down every last minute detail. By only accepting my ideal client (usually no more than 10 weddings per year) that I am stoked about working with, I allow myself to really focus on their needs without feeling like I’m being pulled in 100 different directions. I’d like to think that because I’m able to give each couple my undivided attention that they talk about their great experience to other couples. I’m constantly in communication with them leading up to the day, even if we’re just talking about life, and as soon as the wedding is over, we’re gushing over the sneak peeks that I just edited for them the next day. I really try to get to know my couples as people as opposed to just being someone they hired. My business has always relied heavily on word of mouth, and I’ve been lucky to say that I’ve never invested in any major advertising or promotions.
Other more concrete ways of growing my clientele has been establishing strong referral relationships with other wedding vendors. You can ask all of my couples–as soon as their wedding is booked I have an entire printed and copyrighted guidebook absolutely filled with my favorite vendors and exclusive promotions for my couples. I often joke that I “stack” my wedding vendor team because I there are certain vendors that I love working with over and over again because we always put on a great show. When you’ve photographed almost 100 weddings, you quickly learn who is good and who cares about their couples. And because these relationships with vendors go both ways, I am always thankful when they send a couple my way.
Another way of growing my clientele is befriending the wedding party. Likely, if their friend is getting married then they are getting married sometime soon, too. I love to meet new people and make friends, and instigating fun during wedding party and reception photos is an extremely easy way to network and get to know someone to see if you’d be a good fit for each other. We usually end up exchanging social media handles so I can tag them in photos, and I walk away with tons of new friends and potential clients.
Finally, after ten years, I’ve JUST started submitting my work for features in magazines. Why did I not do this sooner? I really have no answer for that. But it is super rewarding to see your work in print and know that it’s sitting on the shelves in most major convenience stores.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kmmphotographyllc.com
- Instagram: @kmm__photography (double underscore)
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/k.m.miller.photography
Image Credits
Headshot by Clare E. Photography