We recently connected with Asya Beckley and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Asya, thanks for joining us today. Any thoughts about whether to ask friends and family to support your business. What’s okay in your view?

My family and friends knows I’m an international photographer. I promote advertise myself very well I love networking. I’ve been booked just about everywhere I could dream of by complete strangers so I feel that I shouldn’t have to ask my own family to support my business. From my experiences with doing so they would lie and say they would or ask for discounts just because we were family but at the end of the day go book someone and pay full price. At the end of they day I take pictures because that’s what I love to do. It takes $0.00 and .5 seconds to share a post or to like it. The lines can be blurred when It comes to family and friends that’s why I don’t bother asking for support. I built my foundation on those who didn’t know me but still speak my name in rooms I haven’t stepped in yet. True support doesn’t share blood or last names but it shares your vision, it carries love, it shouts your name and cheers you on, it gives you your congrats before you make it. I feel like if I have to beg for you to show any kind of support before I achieve something great I don’t want it honestly. My friends out weighs my family hands down. If I need to do a concept shoot I know I can run to Neiman, Ashlyn, Speak (Clifton) and James, very good friends and they say yes with no thought. Support doesn’t just come in the form of money but anyway to uplift a business. That’s is why I keep my business and family separate family feels entitled to the success.

Asya, 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 an international traveling photographer. I’ve always been obsessed with cameras ever since I was in elementary school. It’s just something about being able to catch a moment and having 1000 stories from it. When they say a picture says 1000 words, they are telling the truth. It’s just something about bringing the smiles to my clients helping them achieve their what imagination brings to the table and help remember the important memories in life just brings me a sense of happiness. And honestly, I wouldn’t trade my crap for anything in the world. I also have different photographers that I work with but at the end of the day I’ll make sure my clients have a personal connection with me. I make sure everything flow smoothly. Make sure everything‘s in their budget anything that they can dream of or think of, I’ll make it happen if that’s the last thing I do. what I’m most proud of is being able to build a business from the ground up by myself through everything that I go through. I still persevere and put my craft before anything else. I suffer from a severe depression disorder and I’m currently going through chemo but that doesn’t stop me. It just gives me more reason to keep going. I feel like something that sets me apart from any other photographer that I have encountered is that I hand build and make my backdrops to personalize the experience for my clients. I literally eat breathe sleep my photography. There has been many days that I wanted to give up but I don’t let anything stop me. I work two jobs on top of building, a business, and for some, that may seem impossible. I get a lot of questions on how I do it, but I always reply in return that the only person that standing in the way of you is you. And from the discipline aspect of it sometimes you have to step back and take a breather because you don’t wanna get burnt out on what you love to do is sometimes you need to make time for yourself and that’s okay. At the end of the day you can’t accomplish anything if you don’t put self-care on the top of your priority list or with your goals in life, and I’ve had to learn that the hard way. Some days I’m scared to take a leap of faith or just dive headfirst into something that I want to do but I always look at it as if there’s a door in front of me and I’m standing alone I can’t wait for somebody else to open that door for me to walk through to accomplish what I set out to do. I have to be strong enough to twist that knob and walk through the door alone. It may be scary, but that’s my favorite part about it. It’s like an adrenaline rush I may fail I may not. But it’s not the destination of where I’m headed. It’s about me enjoying the journey to get where I’m headed. Photography has been one of the best outlets to help me deal with my depression because when I can’t say what I’m feeling, I can always capture it and have my work speak for itself. There are people out there like me who feel like they’re alone who feel like they can’t find the words to describe what they’re thinking or what they’re feeling that’s my mission to give all those a voice who feels like they don’t have one of their own to show them that there’s more beauty to life than what they are shown. Me going through chemo it’s been hard to take a step back from my camera but I know once I get back behind my lens full-time it’ll be worth that momentary pause. I can go on and on of what I’m most proud of but we will be here all day reading an article. Just follow me through my journey and let me give you a peep inside of my life through my camera.

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

My most effective strategy, when it comes to growing my clientele, is not being afraid to step out of my comfort zone. i’ve had problems with being social. I didn’t really like talking to people. I was very complacent with what I had but I knew I wanted more. so in order to do so I’ve had to learn how to socialize how to carry conversations and how to network. I also learned how to tap into my charisma smile more and just be open and to meeting new people, and to diving into new opportunities, even though it scares me sometimes. I had to do a lot of self reflecting, and to understand how people operate how people minds work, and to understand that it’s very different for mines. Just being Open and understanding people vision is sometimes completely different from mine.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson that I had to learn the hard way is that nothing is handed to me without Hardwork. I have grown up in a very fortunate state of living. My mom had to work really hard but she made sure that me and my sister just had everything that we want it with just by asking. So things came pretty easy, although we did have to put in some effort to the acquire those things. So growing up comfortably going into adult years, I’ve had to learn how to get out and strive for the things I want most because I could just reach my hand out and ask for a successful photography, business or anything in that matter. I’ve had to teach myself skills that I were laughing because I didn’t have to learn them early on. Since doing so I built a strong foundation of what did I build a strong foundation of not giving up, resiliency and not being afraid of the future, or the outcome of it. Some habits are hard to learn. There has been many days where I want to ask for handouts to beg for help, but some thing in me looking back on with my mother has accomplished, knowing that it is possible has given me the strength to do what I set out to do. I think we all have sat down and compared our accomplishments to somebody else and we pretty much all sit to ourselves “ why can’t I have… or why isn’t mine like that… how did they get so lucky” honestly it’s not about the lucky it’s all about the drive So unlearning things in life is it handed to you without work, or effort has been something I’ve had to learn on this journey.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_asya.b_
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Picmafiaa
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@PicMafia