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

Hi Aaron, thanks for joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

My now wife was photographing as a side hustle when we first met. I wanted to spend more time with her and I always loved photography, so when one of her clients asked for a video, I jumped at the opportunity to learn something new. I spent hundreds of hours on blogs, YouTube, and testing various camera settings on my own, along with help on proper exposure from my then girlfriend. What I think would have sped up the process is sticking to one camera long term, finding an educational course from a trusted person in the desired space (I was hesitant to invest in education at first), and doing a lot of free or cheap work. With every job I have had, I learned by doing. Same goes with videography. I was blessed with the ability to shoot side-by-side with someone I consider to be a true professional, my wife Emily. I did quite a few for free. I could shoot a stress free video while she directed the couple and did photo. The most essential skill, in my opinion, was learning editing software. Without editing skills, even amazing footage is not going to turn into a good video. The biggest obstacle I had was gear. I did not know how far I wanted to take videography, so I was working with a slow computer, slow/small SSDs, and cameras that were tailored to photography that had a video function. Once I dove into quality computers, fast SSDs, and cinema specific gear, I was able to make the creative process more streamlined and much less frustrating.

Aaron, 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?

I am a food content creator. As someone who was regularly eating air fryer chicken nuggets and frozen pizzas until I was 30+, I never expected to be getting paid to make food and food content. I met my now wife, Emily, who was then a part time photographer. I wanted more time with her and started tagging along to the photo shoots & weddings she shot. It morphed into me shooting full wedding videos. I wanted to keep creating between weddings and during the winter months when weddings are slower. I met a guy who is big into smoking meats and was trying to put together a YouTube page. I helped him get some cameras set up and after trying the food, I realized that there’s more to life than chicken nuggets and frozen pizzas. He set me up with my first charcoal grill which initially was just to cook my dinner and experiment with cooking. Then I started filming it and it has snowballed into being a very fun, delicious, and lucrative hobby. I think the image quality I produce is what sets me apart the most. With my background in wedding videography, I had extremely high end equipment and the knowledge to use it. I don’t have a massive following, which I always thought was needed to make money, but I am able to provide direct or indirect marketing material for brands through my cooking which they seem to enjoy. I have built some extremely solid relationships with companies that truly appreciate the work I am doing. Without their support, I don’t know if I would still be making cooking videos. Cooking can be difficult and video can be difficult, so putting them together has not been an easy process. There were many times I thought about giving up on it, but the support of those awesome companies and my wife truly pushed me through to where I am today.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My biggest goals with creating food content is to show that cooking delicious meals can be really easy and that you can have flavor packed meals without all of the chemicals & fillers of modern day processed foods.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

The most effective strategy for me has been the “free-to-fee” method. I create content and recipes that I enjoy using certain products for free that eventually turns into paid work. I only focus on brands I truly love and would use for free, so transitioning into getting paid is easier as I am enthusiastic about the brand and I am already familiar with the products. Being consistent has also been helpful. Staying away from brands with ingredients I disagree with can be difficult when the $$$ is offered, but sticking to what I believe in has been successful long term versus chasing a quick paycheck.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @a.ehalt
• Facebook: @a.ehalt
• Youtube: @aehalt
• Other: TikTok: @a.ehalt