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

Andrea, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?

My hope is that people remember me as someone who embodied joy, even during life’s most devastating moments. I hope my legacy involves people feeling loved, supported, and seen by me, from both a professional and personal standpoint. I hope that by living my truth, it emboldens those that I’ve come into contact with to recklessly live out their truth and that when people remember me they say “if she can, so can I.”

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

Hi beautiful people! I’m Andrea, a portrait and lifestyle photographer based out of the Twin Cities focusing primarily on high school seniors, weddings/elopements, and motherhood. I’ve been photographing people professionally for about 6 years, but found my love for photography when I was 9 years old. I was 30 years old when I finally decided that my dream of being a photographer didn’t have to remain a dream, and that I had a lot of limiting beliefs around starting my own business and tapping back into my creative energy that I felt I had lost since childhood.

I realized quickly that portrait work was what really lit me up, and that the connections I was making with the younger generation were so soul-warming that I wanted more of that. I started focusing on high school senior portrait work, showcasing the ways in which I see my clients through my lens on Instagram. I promised myself to show up on social media authentically, stripping away the perfection that many people feel social media portrays and instead reminding my audience that we are all imperfectly perfect. What happened after that felt like magic – like a magnet, I started attracting more and more of my ideal clients. Soon-to-be high school seniors started valuing my work, demanding that their parents not go with the traditional small-town portrait photographer that their friends booked but instead hiring me, and I started meeting all these fascinating and gorgeous souls who just wanted to be seen and understood. I somehow am able to bring out a force within them that they and their parents may not have seen for awhile, or ever. One thing I’m known for is my smoke bomb photography – I offer colorful smoke bombs to all my seniors and it’s really set me apart from the rest of the industry here in the Twin Cities.

In the end, I just want my clients to feel beautiful; they may show up nervous and uncomfortable, get in their heads, and second guess their ability to have the kind of results they’ve seen online (because you get one chance to do your senior portraits at a time of your life where you’re closing a chapter and entering a newness that you likely won’t forget and that can be a lot of pressure for some teens these days). But by the end of the session they feel like super models and we’ve instantly become new friends! I provide a lot of prep work for my clients, from outfit inspiration and tips to makeup to posing and everything in between. I want my clients to feel as prepared as possible, but in the end, just show up ready to have fun and TRUST ME to do my job. I love that I continue to have relationships with my clients long after we’ve met and I tell them to please keep in touch because I genuinely care about them.

I’m most proud of developing an associate team of photographers so that I could continue to serve more and more clients while I was feeling limited on time. My team is SO RAD; I have both female and male photographers who work for me, embodying the same energy, creativity, and love for humanity as I do which is so important as an extension of my brand. When I’m booked up myself, my team continues to serve my clientele in a way that allows for that trust to extend past just me and I’m so grateful for that trust. Together in 2022, my team and I served almost 90 high school seniors, and over the years that number is over 250 – WOW! As a team we’ve also photographed over 100 weddings and countless maternity and newborn shoots (any chance I get to hold a baby I will take it)! It is an honor to be a part of every single one of my clients’ lives, and I count my blessings often!

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the biggest reasons why I didn’t pursue photography right out of high school despite my deep love for it was the limiting belief that photographers don’t make enough money. Somehow, this narrative was on repeat in my head and so I felt I needed to choose a career that was “safer”; a “real job” as one might say. I decided to go to college for Criminal Justice and pursued a career in private security. As I was climbing the corporate ladder in that field, my father, who was a videographer and creative himself, was diagnosed with and ultimately passed away from brain cancer (glioblastoma). About 6 months after he passed, he came to me in a dream and said “do it now before now becomes never.” I woke up with a knowing in my soul that I had to live life with no regrets, and go for the things that brought me joy. I started my business with a rinky dink website and threw myself into learning anything and everything that I could about photography, marketing, business, etc. I stripped down the belief that photographers would always be starving artists, and aligned myself with others in the industry that were expanders – people that were showing me it was possible to make six figures with this creative career. Now 6 years later, my business is thriving and in 2022 I had my best year yet. I can confidently say that while photographers put in A LOT of time and energy into their craft and sometimes can feel burnt out from all it takes to be profitable, it is absolutely possible to move into a space of abundance and worth in your business.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

WORD OF MOUTH! When I realized that the best way to get new clients was to serve your current ones well, it all just fell into place. Social media is an amazing tool for getting yourself seen, and Instagram specifically has been instrumental for me, but when I look at the data for where my inquiries are coming in, it’s word of mouth. When you leave your clients with that feeling of “there’s no one else I’d rather work with”, they will naturally scream your name in a crowded room.

In terms of social media marketing, I am not afraid to hit that follow button on potential clients and strike up conversations / start being their hype woman before they even think about working with me. I engage authentically with my peeps, and make sure they feel important and not just another number in my queue. Even with the clients that work with my associate team and never meet me, I try to make sure they know they are JUST as important to ME as someone who did get to shoot directly with me, because they are.

I’ve also found that when you start producing and showing the kind of work that you want more of, those people that want the same will come to you. So I’ve definitely grown a specific kind of clientele by focusing on showcasing that kind of work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.andreawagnerphotography.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreawagnerphotography

Image Credits
Photo taken by Clare with Madeira Creative