We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Arielle Doneson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Arielle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How do you think about vacations as a business owner? Do you take them and if so, how? If you don’t, why not?
During the summer of 2018, I was feeling burned out. After 11 years as a full time photographer of weddings, I offhandedly mentioned to my husband my desire to spend my retirement studying foreign languages and learning to make croissants. His response: Why wait until retirement? What’s stopping you from doing those things now? These two questions were a revelation to me. I realized that the only thing stopping me, was… me! I immediately started searching for a language tutor online, (I found one, via Preply.com – I still work with her every week!) I signed up for a croissant making class, and I booked a long weekend trip to Paris. That year I went to Paris twice. The trips were short, I left on a Wednesday evening flight, arrived in the city of light early on Thursday, spent 4 whirlwind solo-traveler days and returned home on a Sunday afternoon flight. This first brief trip was deeply inspiring. It was a very brief escape from the responsibilities of my business and my busy life as a mom of two young kids. I know that I am lucky that my husband is able to keep things together on the home front with the running of the house and taking care of the kids while I go. I have since gone to France for brief trips twice a year. I think that these trips have saved me from my work burnout, which is often nipping at my heels towards the end of a busy wedding season. The beauty of France, the freedom of making decisions for myself and only myself during those 4 or 5 days, the soaking up of the culture and inspiration of the fabulous museums and gardens fill me up with beautiful images that inspire my work in the months that follow. I now see these trips as an essential part of my workflow. I am now in my 16th year as a full time photographer and I only know of two remedies for the burnout: Education and Travel. It is very easy to believe that everything will fall apart if I unplug from the rat race for a long weekend, but with modern technology, 5g networks and wifi I can be available to my clients if need be, but the truth of the matter is that these trips have become an important part of my brand. My established clients love to follow my adventures via instagram and other travel lover clients have been attracted to my work via this kindred flame for travel. My advice to other entrepreneurs concerned worried about stepping away for a short vacation – do it! For the sake of your business, live your life! It will make you a better entrepreneur if your own cup is full and you are inspired. It can often feel like it’s stealing away valuable time from your business to do take an hour out of your week for yourself for a hobby that gives you pleasure, but I truly believe that it’s the other way around. If you start to make the things you enjoy a priority in your life and plan your business around your one hour of inspiration and self-care your business will actually become better.
Arielle, 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 am a photographer of people, primarily weddings and portraits. My Dad’s main hobby during my childhood was film photography which is how I initially got interested. I studied classical music and borrowed a friend’s digital SLR during my years as a starving musician in NYC. I did portrait sessions for my fellow artists who needed cheap headshots. Eventually my artist friends started getting married and they would ask me to photograph them. I fell in love with the high emotions, beauty of connection, cultural richness, and pomp and circumstance of weddings. I then dove into the techniques, took many classes and workshops, and started apprenticing with other photographers.
My super power is being extremely tuned in to the emotional states of my clients so that I can help bring a sense of calm to the chaos of a wedding day. I also think I have a good balance of capturing the candid moments but also stepping in when needed to give direction for gorgeous portraits. I can always find the good light. I understand the role of wedding photography as in service to the couple and their day and not the other way around. I don’t get too caught up in my own ego.
I am proud of how every time there’s been something I felt held me back in my business in terms of a technical skill I lacked, I put the work in to educating myself how to master the skill and add it to my bag of tricks. I look at those skill areas as places to dig deeper and improve myself instead of things to work around and avoid. I also am proud of the fact that I have managed to continue to grow my business over the past 16 years and protected myself from the burnout and stagnation that causes many photographers to leave the business.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I was a very creative child, but from the time I was a very young child my focus was classical music. I ended up pursuing a career in opera. After several years of singing professionally, I found myself at a crossroads in terms of my technical development. I was forced to take a hiatus from performing. At the time, this felt like a horrible punishment, but now I look back at that time as a great opportunity to find other outlets for my creativity. It was during this period that I began getting serious with photography. I believe that all creative people have the potential for many different channels, and when I was forced to stop performing the music that I loved, this force found its way out of my in a new way. My training as a classical musician gave me a great work ethic as well as the tools to be extremely focused and technically-minded. Transferring these skills to photography was natural – it was the only way I know how to pursue a creative passion! Much to my own surprise, after my performing pause year was over I found that I was more interested in pursuing photography as a business than singing! Though I no longer sing arias for an audience, many of the performance skills from my former career are things that I constantly find myself returning to as a photographer. Having gone through the ‘pivot’ from a singer to a photographer I feel less limited by my own ideas of myself as an artist. Hopefully, I’ll have the opportunity to continue growing as an artist which may take me to places in my career I haven’t yet imagined.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
I think the ability to recognize that fire in other creatives is a true gift. It allows us to connect with people from different walks of life in an authentic way. I also think it gives us a greater flexibility in terms of being able to see things from various perspectives simultaneously.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ariellephoto.com/
- Instagram: @arielledphotography
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArielleDonesonPhotography
Image Credits
Arielle Doneson Photography