We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Amanda Hoffman . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Amanda below.

Alright, Amanda thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

My journey to full-time creative work has been kind of a slow one, or at least at times it has felt slow to me. I did photography as a hobby and then a side hustle for close to 10 years before making the leap to full time. I think I always knew I wanted to transition to doing photography full-time and in the end it really just took making the choice. I think trusting myself and taking myself seriously was (and still is) probably one of my biggest obstacles. I stood in my own way for a long time. Even now, 5 years into doing photography full-time I still often feel unsure of myself and continue working to find new, better ways to make my business work for me. I spent a lot of time in the beginning thinking that there was one right way to run my business or do my work. At some point you just really have to trust yourself and your creativity in the way that what works for everyone else might not work for you and comparing someone else’s work or timeline to your own usually isn’t productive. That understanding and confidence is definitely something you build as you go but being in community with other professionals has also contributed greatly to my experience. For a very long time I tried to do everything on my own, I thought that was part of the journey, the struggle, the earning of my place. I think any worth while thing we want to create will present its challenges and that there will be struggle, but I don’t think I needed to go through that alone for it to count. The more I asked for help, the more I found that people want to help. In addition to other professionals being such a big support and resource for me, putting myself in ‘the arena’ with other professionals is something that builds so much confidence in myself and my work. It can be intimidating and scary to put yourself out there especially with people who you really look up to and who are seemingly where you want to be, but along the way you learn that everyone’s journey has ups and downs and that you have to give yourself permission to stand in your power along your journey too! In the end I wouldn’t change the slow path I have taken because I learned the lessons I needed to learn along the way and have built such a strong foundation both in my mental fortitude and in my portfolio of work.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a lifestyle photographer based in Austin Texas. I have been photographing people, families and brands for more than 10 years. Whether I am shooting portraits or events, my goal is always connection. I love connecting with the people I am working with but I also love helping people to connect with themselves. To help them see themselves in a more loving and generous way and to feel seen. I think everyone deserves to feel worthy, to feel love, kindness & acceptance of themselves and I try to give everyone I work with the opportunity to feel seen. When working with families I encourage connection over perfection and focus my energy and attention on capturing authentic moments. I find so much joy in making memories of families hugging, running, playing & laughing together. My favorite way to photograph families is in their homes, it is so special to document a family in their own space & it has often resulted in the most authentic, most beautiful images I have ever made. The kind of memories that you will treasure for generations, snapshots of your real life. Photography was a hobby for me for years before I turned it into a business but the soul of why I loved it remains the same, story telling, connection & legacy. Freezing little moments in time that can immediately return you to a place, an event, a feeling. I feel immense gratitude to get to do a job that doesn’t feel like a job and that has cultivated and continues to bring me relationships with the most amazing humans.

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

Working as a full-time creative can be a challenge. There is balance that you try to maintain between creative expression and working for clients for pay. Over the last year work was feeling really challenging and not as fulfilling, I was having difficulty showing up as my best self. I felt more concerned with the quantity of work and the paycheck than on the fun & creativity which truly drives me. I grew up in a home that taught rigorous work ethics, the importance of productivity and doing a good ‘job’ at your job. That a job wasn’t meant to be fun. That time spent not “working” was frivolous or lazy. These things don’t necessarily translate to having a creative career and they definitely don’t resonate with me now in terms of my beliefs or goals. However, they were still beliefs that I found ingrained somewhere deep inside and they were affecting my ability to do my best work. Curiosity and play is the key to creativity and I wasn’t allowing myself ‘the luxury’ of spending time doing things that weren’t directly connected to making money or that weren’t for a client. I forgot the value and importance of remaining connected to my creativity in this way and I had stopped dedicating the time to feeding this part of my soul. I have had to prioritize time for creativity in my day to day and the more I have allowed myself to have time for play, experimentation & bringing to life the ideas in my head, the more energized and motivated I feel to do work that maintains a balance between my creative voice and my clients needs.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The more I lean into my creativity, the more I learn to value creativity as a practice that is essential to my life, the more I am able to access deeper parts of myself. I am learning to look at creativity, not as something frivolous, but as a privilege and a necessity to accessing my authentic self. In digging into myself in this way, I am able to better connect with others. Those connections, built from creativity, allow others to access their own authentic selves too. It becomes this beautiful circle where there is permission and space to be the multi-faceted, flawed, beautiful humans we all are. It is equally overwhelming and exciting to know that there is an endless tap of inspiration at our disposal if we can learn to be connected to the beauty of the universe and to ourselves.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://amandahoffmanart.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/amandahoffmanart
• Facebook: facebook.com/amandahoffmanart

Image Credits
Portraits of Amanda : Laura Morsman Photography All other photos : Amanda Hoffman Art