Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tomas Mitchell. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Tomas, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Success is all about motivation. If you are not willing to put in the effort and keep your self motivation going even when you don’t feel like doing anything you will never succeed.

I found out early in life that no one was going to take my ideas and make them happen but me. As I grew into adulthood I developed habits of hard work, and self motivation that have carried me through my life. One of the best self motivators I found was to take the criticism from others and use it to inspire me. Every time someone said to me “you can’t do that” I used the emotion it created in me to push my self harder, to practice longer, to study deeper to learn the skill I was seeking.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I got into photography as a hobby over 35 years ago because I liked the creative outlet it gave me. I quickly turned my hobby into a profession of photographing people. I did many weddings, modeling shoots and portraits for a solid 10 years before I decided to turn my energy toward my true love of nature and landscape photography.

By this point in my life I had an established career in the photo finishing industry. I used my knowledge of printing photographs for art displays as a springboard for printing my own work as art that others would want hanging in their homes and offices. Having high quality art prints for my clients is my single most important goal. When I have one of my images printed I want it to not only look its best but I want it to last a lifetime without ever fading. At first I could not meet this goal because the technology of printing photographs was still chemical based. But as the years passed and technology changed, art printing centered around ink jet printers instead of the Chromogenic process. This change has revolutionized the world of printing photography as art.

My fine art prints are printed using Epson Archival ink that will not fade for over 100 years. Combined with the protective coatings that overlay my prints I guarantee my work to not fade within the buyers lifetime.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Building a clientele base as a visual artist can be very challenging. We now live in a time where brick and mortar stores are closing up shop and being replaced with online sales. There are still options for visual artists such as painters, sculptures and photographers to get their art known and build a clientele but the end game needs to be online sales.

I first started by doing local art shows and festivals where I could display my art. I met collectors and built a fan base but also directed people to my website.

Second is having a good website and understanding how to get organic sales online. This is a huge learning curve for most people. They think they can put up a website and people will come. Nothing is further from the truth. Understanding that your website needs to be viewable on a computer AND a mobile device is very important. But even if you have a great looking website if you haven’t built your site with proper SEO (search engine optimization) no one will find your site. SEO is key to getting traffic to your site and growing your clientele. Learning everything you need to know about SEO can be a challenge because it is a constantly changing world but there are resources out there to learn from if you search.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Being able to pick and choose what I am going to create and planning sometimes months or even years in advance to capture the photograph I have imagined. More than once I have found a scene I loved but unlike painters who can paint the scene how ever they want a photographer has to wait for the perfect conditions of atmosphere, light and color to capture the perfect image. This can take years of planning by watching the weather forecasts, the solar and lunar cycles, the seasons to know when to be there to capture the photograph but even then it can depend most of all on just luck.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.twmitchell.com/
• Instagram: tomaswmitchell
• Facebook: tomaswmitchellphotography
• Youtube: Tomas W. Mitchell Fine Art Photography