We were lucky to catch up with Annie Shannon recently and have shared our conversation below.

Annie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

It took many years of trial and error. I grew up with YouTube, but didn’t fully understand how to look up tutorials so a lot of what I learned photography wise was either self taught or something that a friend showed me. When it comes to the business aspect, I knew NOTHING. They don’t teach you how taxes work, they don’t talk about entrepreneurial things at all. Knowing what I know now, I would look up the following things:
How to use manual settings on a camera
How to file for a sales tax license
How to set up a separate business bank account
How to file quarterly taxes
A client management system
How to do accounting for your business
How to serve clients before they contact you through service marketing
Contracts that are written by lawyers
How to price so you make a profit first

The most essential skills are actually having the basics of business and understand how to operate them, because once you have those basic skills, you can build your business easily and not have to worry about the tedious tasks of finances and taxes.

The obstacles that stood in my way were dyslexia, a reading disability and my ignorance on what I needed to know. I would say, keep a log of everything you learn so that you can always refer back to it, but also never stop looking for more sources to learn. You should never stop actively learning something.

Annie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m Annie Shannon, I’m a suburban girl who now lives on a farm with my husband and dog and if anyone told me I would be a wedding and elopement photographer who lives on a farm, 10 years ago, I would have laughed at them.

I ended up doing photography through a means of fundraising to become a missionary in Spain and when I came back, I had a full fledged business. I then went overseas to Mexico, became fluent in Spanish along the way and am now a wedding and elopement photographer again!

I offer a customized experience to couples who are getting married and one thing that makes me stand out is one of my brand pillars is accessibility for people who have disabilities.

I am most proud of the processes. It’s not about the big things that I have accomplished, such as getting published, or starting a podcast, but the little things that it took to get there. I am proud of the journey. I’m proud of every single photo I have taken for a client, of all the hours I have put into editing and the time and effort I have put into this business. But most of all, I am so so so grateful for every single client who has come my way. I am not the woman I was because of the impact they have had on my life and it is an honor to serve them.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

The resources I WISH I knew about earlier in my creative journey are Story Brand by Donald Miller, The Heart University by Evie McLeod and Lindsey Roman, The Legal Paige and good ol’ googling “what should I know as a photographer/business owner?”

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

At the very beginning of my career, in order to get together the initial capital I needed to start my business, I babysat for months being paid $5 an hour at the age of 16. I saved up every penny I had to buy my first camera, and then saved up every penny I earned to buy my second and start a website. It was a wild journey looking back on it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.annieshannon.co
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annieshannon.co/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theannieshannonco
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@annieshannonco