Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I began taking photos when I was in high school. Took a photo class to learn the basics and really started getting into photography when Instagram was in its infancy. I’d never seen photography from people my age, all the professional photos I’d been exposed to were old dudes who used telephoto lenses for boring “technically correct” shots. It’s silly to look back on, but Instagram and Tumblr played a huge part in teaching me photography and shaping my taste in those early years. I grew up in a very conservative community, so I knew a lot of people getting married right out of high school and college, so I started taking friends’ engagement and wedding photos. My portfolio grew, and eventually people I didn’t know started reaching out to me from my work I posted on Instagram. Since then, I’ve been working to grow my businesses more and more every year to the point of not only being financially independent and relying solely on photography for my income, but also not working a vast portion of the year.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No. I still had to work as a nanny and pick up odd jobs and side gigs to support myself at the beginning. Much of the resources that exist for photographers now simply wasn’t around when I started, so I had to figure everything out on my own and spent a significantly longer time figuring out the basics that most people can get access to from an online course they can just buy. There are still times when the SEO for my website will randomly tank, or leads will be really dry, or something else will set me back. A lot of owning a business is constantly playing a game of figuring out what’s going wrong and how to fix the day’s newest issues. It can be overwhelming and is why owning is business isn’t for everyone. I still sometimes think about how much easier it would be to work a regular 9-5 and just have one singular job where someone tells me what to do, but then I think about how much more time I’d be spending at that job vs. on vacation or doing the things I love, and I feel that owning a business is still worth it.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I shoot small weddings and elopements, so a lot of what I do is hiking and driving around places like Colorado and Oregon and other states in the west shooting couples on top of a mountain or somewhere really beautiful and scenic. A lot of my job is also being a planner and helping couples location scout for a place that they’d like to visit, recommending vendors that can accommodate their unique needs, and helping put together timelines for the day. A lot of people like the idea of doing my job, but very few people actually have the knowledge or experience I do in order to execute it. The idea of hiking to the top of a 14er in Colorado for your job sounds like a lot of fun to people, but in actuality, it’s a lot of work, and you have to actually have experience doing these things before you can take someone else to do them with you. So unlike a lot of other people out there, I was born and raised in Colorado and am familiar with the whole state, I’ve had a job guiding people in the outdoors, and have been on basically every hike in the state, so I know my stuff. It’s a pretty competitive industry, but you can’t really compete if it’s clear you don’t know your stuff.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
I think when you feel happy and fulfilled, that’s success. I’m not a “grandest” hustle culture type of person, really. I don’t find work very valuable, to be honest. I find time off far more valuable. I like having time to myself, being able to travel, meeting new people, and having the luxury to not do anything. A lot of people who own their own business are far more work oriented than I am, and quite frankly, I find that exhausting. I think success is being able to do what you want instead of having to work your life away.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.katiedawnphoto.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katie.dawn.photo/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katiedawnphotography
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@KatieDawnPhoto
