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

Shaun, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright, so we’d love to hear about how you got your first client or customer. What’s the story?

The first paying customer came as a referral from someone I met through a friend. My friend is also a photographer and knows my passion for photography. He invited me to do a collaboration at an old warehouse famous for having music videos filmed there. I later learned that one of the models was the daughter of the warehouse owner. That was my first time meeting this group of talented creatives and we put on a beautiful production that day. Fast forward half a year later, I received a phone call from the guy my friend introduced me to who then referred to me a well-known celebrity from a well-known celebrity tv show by a well known producer. THAT was the very first time my business earned a dime. At that time I dont even think the business had opened a checking account so I kept the money in cash app.

Shaun, 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?

It’s me, Shaun again, and allow me to reintroduce myself as the self taught, self driven, photographer by trade who first became enamored with cameras from following in my father’s footsteps. My father, who was not a professional by any means, simply modeled for me my first example of this idea of a ‘camera guy’ since he was the first and one of the only people I knew growing up with the shouldered camcorders that took vhs tapes and later progress to the more compact, more advanced cameras with digital display and a much smaller battery that could fit in your palm. I used to watch the tapes he would produce and it pained me to no end when I would hit play only to see me and my friends from the knees down. He eventually bought a tripod and I eventually began to work my way around the camera, sharing what I learned with him in hopes that he would learn, too. But, eventually, my pops outgrew the camera, and after I graduated from middle school, there wasn’t much content for him to film – his baby boy was growing up. But by the time I hit junior year in high school, I’d spent the $750+ dollars for the camera kit at Best Buy, and I was ready to rock and roll. My b roll game was trash and, honestly, its just now getting to a point where I incorporate it in my films without shame, but once I graduated high school, I found myself taking photo gigs at local bars in hoods for short money, never truly knowing the value of the profession.

Fast forward – I take a leap of faith and move to Atlanta with all of my photography equipment and all of my whit. And the short of it is, I ran into a photographers group and was instantly catapulted into a new realm of creativity. From there, I’ve experimented with nudist photography, boudoir, lifestyle, and corporate style photography. My passion lies within candid lifestyle photography where I’m allowed to capture subjects in their natural element and I’m proud to say I’ve had the privilege to do that for several celebrities since my time here in Atlanta.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Opportunities don’t want for you to get your ish together. I’ve had to learn the hard way that opportunities, while they always come and go, are ultimately given to those who ‘take’ them. By that, I mean, take chances, risks, names, all the above. One situation that stands out to me the most was losing the opportunity to photograph Buffalo rapper Westsidegunn for his album cover here in Atlanta. A guy I know from his camp reached out to me and inquired about my services and I didn’t really go above and beyond to impress his client or earn his business. I believe I simply sent the link to my site – and, honestly, one challenge I’ve had consistently has been finding a studio I can call home. I’ve moved around while in the area and where I reside now there just aren’t many places I know of to choose from. Plus, I have a kid now and just trying to coordinate and be on point and ready for those situations have admittedly been a challenge. So, if you’re serious about the business, you have to invest the time, effort, and energy into being ready so that you don’t have to get ready – as they say.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Funding my business has been all of a wing and a prayer. Well, not exactly – like many photographers, I held onto my first camera. Then, when I decided to upgrade, I came out of pocket for my second camera which was relatively inexpensive and I had it to invest so I went ahead and upgraded. I searched for knock of lenses that had good reviews and headed back to amazon. Every little bit of extra money I had, I just threw into amazon’s bank account to acquire new hardware for different situations I would run into but wasn’t prepared for in the past. Now, its the photo booth purchases that really come with a bit of irony because, if it wasn’t for COVID, the thing that should down the planet, I wouldn’t have had the stimulus money I used to buy my first photo booth. The money was just chillin, and the world seemed to be passing my by so I went ahead and took a leap of faith and bought it. Then everyone started flocking to the 360 booth so I footed the bill by using credit. One event almost paid for the entire investment.

Contact Info:

• Website: blog.jeanalonmedia.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/jeanalonmedia
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/jeanalonmedia
• Other: Get your business online with our vendor program at https://www.jeanalonmedia.com/referral-vendor-program