We recently connected with Amy Minor and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Amy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Crazy stuff happening is almost as certain as death and taxes – it’s technically “unexpected” but something unexpected happening is to be expected and so can you share a crazy story with our readers

I started Blue Hour Photographers in April 2022, barely anyone knew I opened it. I love shooting landscapes and was working on a project to make products for stores. I had 3 locations I wanted to get to at sunrise. The last one was one of the Operation Bumblebee towers in North Topsail. When I arrived there was a washed up refugee boat, just sitting on the beach of this vacation island. It is one of the craziest things I stumbled upon on the beach. No one was in it, they had been rescued by the coastguard. It was a handmade boat. The outside was made out of Styrofoam and sheet metal. The inside was held together with wood, with a diesel engine from a car in the middle that had started to melt the Styrofoam. Their things was still in the boat, adult and children’s sneakers, a bag of rice, jugs of water, fishing hooks, and line. The propellor was handmade out of brass. There was a group of people checking it out too but I was the only person with a real camera which was luck since the island has so many photographers who get up for the sunrise. I posted some of pictures to a couple local pages saying the town was removing it and over 500,000 people saw it, some people sent me pictures of ones they had found! The whole experience was unreal, I can’t imagine putting my kids in a homemade boat to leave a country, to my company getting so much publicity when I wasn’t even ready to really be open.

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

I have always wanted a photography company but ended up in healthcare after college. I love most types of photography so we offer a wide variety of services from landscapes and aerial photography, to portraits of individuals, families, newborns and pets. We also stay involved in the community and enjoy event photography. In 2018, I bought a nice camera and took some photography classes that I enjoyed. Then I took some finance classes, small business start up classes, and graphic design classes. I practiced photography on almost everyone I knew. One morning, I felt brave decided that was the day and made it an LLC. I bought a drone and convinced my husband Justin to get his commercial drone license so we could offer aerial photography. Photography also gives me a good excuse to travel to new places and shoot the sunrise and sunset every chance I get. I sell my landscape images as prints, canvases, cards and postcards. I feel extremely lucky, I get to take all the things I love and make it my job.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I mentioned wanted to get in to photography after high school but my family strongly encouraged me to go into healthcare. I did exactly what they wanted. I went to college, got a Bachelors degree in Radiologic Science and became an MRI technologist. I got married shortly after graduating and had 4 kids, a boy, girl and then twin boys. I worked full time as an MRI tech for almost 15 years. It’s a good job but I wasn’t what I wanted to be doing at the time. I really just wanted to be able to show up for my kids, their games, concerts, fieldtrips, all the things. One day everything fell into place and I put in my notice, I was going to start working in a beach store that was close to home that I would be able to attend all their activities. My second day the store closed due to Hurricane Florence. That was around the same time I bought my first camera. A few months later I started taking photography classes and opened a part time cleaning business. It took me almost 3 years to open Blue Hour Photographers. I created it in the spring without any plan or direction. My small business class walked you through every step of start up didn’t begin until the summer and I had planned to open in the fall, I had no idea what I was doing. I don’t suggest starting a business that way. I asked anyone I could think of for advice when something came up I didn’t know. The funny thing was the people I least expected to help me were the ones that would go out of their way the most. It is still pretty new and I learn a lot by trial and error but I feel like that happens with anything you build. I love photography and I am so grateful I had the courage to go for it.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

The best source for new clients is social media and word of mouth. When people love their photos they tell all their friends. I don’t really advertise much because I wasn’t interested in growing really quickly. Event photography and sponsoring community events has also helped get my company noticed locally.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bluehourphotographers.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/bluehourphotographers
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/bluehourphotographers

Image Credits
Photographer: Amy Minor Model: Emma Model: Lauren, Enoch, Liam, Rannon, Aslan