We were lucky to catch up with Brent Doscher recently and have shared our conversation below.

Brent, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

I believe in order to be successful in this industry, you have to truly enjoy the work and your drive has to come from that intrinsic motivation. The motivation to always just take really cool photos drives your work and your creativity, and that’s how people will notice you.

When I started shooting adventure sports, I had no clients, I had no outlet for my photos, and no way of deriving any income from it. I would simply scroll through magazines and the internet, see photos, and say to myself “woah, that’s cool, I want to take photos like that.” I would ask around to see who would want to get out, and bring my camera along to take shots.

It was many years of that before I really had my client shooting outdoor sports. Even then it was usually just shooting photos in exchange for product. Once I had established myself as a driven creative, I started getting better paid gigs.

There’s really no shortcut in this industry for most people. You have to put in many years of work making little or no money to hone your craft before you start landing clients and feeling comfortable enough to ask for what you are worth. Because of that, you have to be able to take joy out of making great photos in and of itself if you want to continue pushing ahead.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve been photographing since I was about 10 years old in my backyard taking photos of birds flying in and out of bird boxes. In the 25 years since, photography has permeated most parts of my life. I have run my own endurance sports photography business, have held multiple careers as a photography director and producer, and have thoroughly enjoyed seeing how my own personal interests drive my own photography.

As I’ve come up through the industry, I’ve enjoyed learning about virtually every aspect of photography. I have done studio product photography, I have sold fine art landscape photography, I have shot for local papers, and I have supplied headshots for large organizations, just to name a few. I enjoy the challenge of learning a new technique, and my portfolio over the years reflects that.

At the moment, my niche that I have found the most success in is in the outdoor adventure sports world. I’ve been running around outside, bounding up and down rocks since I was a kid, and that love for the outdoor world and the variety of sports I enjoy has been a great marriage with my photography style. The familiarity and comfort with the many different sports allows me to help any client create some great lifestyle and core imagery that feels genuine and I can sidestep the issues brands sometimes have when hiring people to photograph activities they aren’t familiar with.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had (and still sometimes have) a bad habit of going into shoots with a very clear idea of a shot that I wanted and would often put the blinders on to get that shot. Earlier in my career, I was always trying to focus on the little person, big landscape shot that I knew performed well on social media and I would hope would get me more followers.

In the process of getting that shot, I would ignore all the other things happening, the smaller details that made the story.

A couple things happened to snap me out of it:

1) I started following creators that were really talented at telling stories through their work and started unfollowing the accounts that just posted the same cliché photo all the time. Doing so made me realize what a cohesive story through photos looked like, and allowed me to start seeing photos in the in-between moments.

2) I realized over time that gaining followers on social media is essentially meaningless. Yes, having a certain following can you get you work, but at the end of the day being proud of your own body of work for its own merit is more important than a number on your follower list.

Once I stopped holding myself to the cliché social media posts for the most likes, I started looking for other photos that wouldn’t perform as well on social but would help to establish a narrative. By doing so, my approach towards photography changed and I was able to just let adventures happen and spot the cool moments when they happened rather than trying to force a perspective.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I once heard a good quote from a photographer, and I think it applies to anyone trying to build a brand, whether or not they are a creative:

“Don’t worry too much about developing your own style or creative voice. It will find you.”

I remember the first time a friend said, “this is totally a Brent photo,” and I responded quizzically, inquiring what they meant. They said that I absolutely had a specific style to my photos, and they could probably pick it out a lineup.

This was very interesting to me because I had never tried to establish my own style. I was just taking the photos I thought were cool, and processing them in a way that I found appealing.

Be true to yourself with your own brand on social media, and create and post content that you yourself like. It will make your work much more enjoyable and you will attract followers who appreciate your vision. Those are the people you want to share your experiences and work with.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.brentdoscher.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brentdoscher/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brentdoscher/