Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Anna Clark. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Anna, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Photography was a bit inevitable for me. I’m from Los Angeles, California, which has so much art to offer. I also come from a family of incredibly artistic people. My Grandfather introduced me to cameras and the joy of recording wonderful moments and scenes when I was very young. By the age of twelve I had my first camera and began exploring the world around me through the lens.

At fifteen years old, I knew that photography would be my profession but I was at a loss for my specialty. I had equal loves for fashion, photojournalism, travel, and still life photography. A mentor pointed out to me that weddings were the perfect cross-section of each of those loves. When I started assisting him on his weddings, I found my passion. By the time I was nineteen, I had started my business while still studying photojournalism and fashion photography, even taking time to intern at an independent magazine learning on sets from top LA fashion photographers. All of that infuses into my work today. I’m now ten years and counting into my work and continuing to love the work that I get to do.

Anna, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I love to provide fresh imagery with Impressionistic art influences as well as editorial fashion influences for my couples who choose me to capture their weddings and for editorial and commercial clients in the wedding industry.

Beautiful light is always my starting point, using it to show details, delicate texture, and the romance of my couples. My compositions are simple, as I like to keep my subjects poignant and elegant. Then I look to color, always seeking to celebrate the moods created by the palette around me. When posing my couples, I infuse my experiences in college learning on set from top fashion photographers – I allow my subjects to enjoy interacting candidly and I step in with gentle prompts and guidance, which makes for a relaxed session and stunning captures.

The resulting images carry a timeless quality, and I have been thrilled to have people from every walk of life in front of my lens being celebrated. I love creating imagery that viewers feel they can dive into and truly touch what they’re seeing. And with weddings in particular, my favorite feedback is that my clients felt like themselves the entire time, and that the resulting images feel like how they see one another.

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

Never underestimate how far genuine kindness and consideration will take you as they generate referrals, but also as they build the *type* of client that you attract.

As photographers, we are often creating with the help of others. Particularly within my fields of wedding and editorial photography, I truly can’t express the full scope of what I do without other creatives. Caring for their work while I capture it as much as I care for my own end product has built some of the most incredible relationships, and also has resulted in client referrals that truly align with the types of people that I enjoy working with most.

I’m so thankful to have lovely clients who are also hiring my favorite creative colleagues. Building beautiful collaborative communities will ultimately connect you to clients who appreciate that synergy, and you get to benefit on every possible level.

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

I grew up in the midst of the Los Angeles music scene with my dad being a professional musician, so hustle mentality and staying on a grind to be at the top of your game was just a part of what was necessary and normalized. My own journey just never really aligned with this, however, and I found it hard to maintain my health and internal peace with that type of mindset.

About five years into my work, I decided it was time to relax my hands on the metaphorical steering wheel. The biggest thing was not holding myself to a career timeline, that thing of “by this date, I need to be at this milestone” and instead, I set more generalized goals. Whatever time they happened was fine, I was just along for the journey and would take opportunities to edge toward those next levels as they developed from efforts that better fit my goals for my personal life.

In the midst of a lot of uncontrollable life circumstances, that mentality shift has helped me to maintain my work while maintaining my sanity. Things that would at first appear as set backs have always ended up launching me forward in ways that I hadn’t planned, and releasing that pressure has meant that I could stay mentally present for my family in the ways that mean the most to me.

Contact Info:

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

Image Credits
All images by Anna Clark Photo