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

Annie, appreciate you joining us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

My goal is to capture families authentically, while still in an an artful and beautiful way. After a couple of years of shooting in a more “traditional”, smile-and-look-at-the-camera style, I realized that what I really wanted was to capture families the way I photograph my own children. At play, in their natural element, basically just more naturally. Posed images just aren’t where my passion lies. They aren’t “artful” and don’t inspire me. So I began showing my audience what their family sessions COULD look like, and more and more people have gotten on board and are willing to “let go” during their sessions and just go with the flow. And that’s when the magic happens.

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

I’m a Minnesota based lifestyle photographer focused on capturing connection and storytelling. I’m a wife and a mama to 4 girls, Betsy (6) Violet (5) Tess (3) and Joy (1). Like so many other photographers, I got my start in photography after having kids and wishing I could capture and save their fleeting childhood moments. I bought my first DSLR and fell in LOVE. I began to pour my heart into the art, soaking up all of the information I could on light, movement, location, emotion, connection and editing. Now I get to capture the fleeting moments of so many other families as well as my own. My favorite work is lifestyle, for families, maternity and newborn, both in-home, and outdoor. I am an educator through a couple of large photography platforms, and mentor photographers 1:1 as well, both in-person and all over the nation via zoom.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

As I mentioned earlier, I got my start in photography via my own kids, who were my original muses. I’d follow them around with my camera and play with light, angles, storytelling etc. Soon I had people asking me to take their family photos, which I was completely uninterested in. I only wanted to photograph MY family, they were who inspired me, after all. However, after getting enough inquiries, I decided to just give it a shot and see how I felt about it. I was instantly hooked. Photography became my side-hustle, my “real job” was as a hairstylist. Over the next couple of years, I dove more and more into my little photography business, building up a client closet, developing my “voice” and getting my name out there. My wonderful husband, John, couldn’t understand at the time why I wanted to have two jobs, as hairstyling had always been my passion and what I had gone to school for. I couldn’t explain it, but photography was becoming more and more of who I was and how I wanted to express myself. I’ve always been artistic, and it was more artistically satisfying than doing hair, I felt. It was a struggle working so much for the first couple of years of doing both hair and photography, as well as having a home and 4 kids to take care of. Finally I decided I needed to make a choice, hair or photography, and my heart went with photography. Once that decision was made, I was free to pour so much more of myself and my energy into my business and it just blossomed.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The fact that I can make money to help support my family while doing what I truly love as a creative is insane to me. I realize how blessed I am. I definitely get overwhelmed and feel burn out at different points of the year, but overall, what I do is so fulfilling, I’d never trade it. I’m diving more and more into the educational side of photography lately, which is very rewarding. I have mentored other creatives from all over the US as well as many other countries via Zoom calls this year, and now offer in-person mentoring as well. Next year I will be co-hosing a workshop with another photographer I adore, and I’m so excited to see where it takes us. I never saw myself as a teacher AT ALL, but almost exactly as with how my business originally started, once the requests to teach kept coming and coming, I finally gave in and tried it, and again, was instantly hooked.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.annienelsonphotography.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annienelsonphotography/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AnnieNelsonPhotography/