We recently connected with Brett Farmer and have shared our conversation below.
Brett, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Everyone has crazy stuff happen to them, but often small business owners and creatives, artists and others who are doing something off the beaten path are often hit with things (positive or negative) that are so out there, so unpredictable and unexpected. Can you share a crazy story from your journey?
Okay, so this is a fresh story actually. I was covering a celebrity golf charity event that I was hired in as a co-shooter with a good friend. The key celebrity was Mark Wahlberg, and when he arrived he was never given the opportunity to get to the driving range to hit a few balls.
Lucky for him there was a small rain delay before the shotgun start, I ran inside the clubhouse to try to get a couple shots edited for the client. The rain had stopped and he saw an opportunity to sneak to the driving range. In doing so he actually ended up taking my golf cart with my Canon R3 and Canon 300mm lens on it.
My friend text me saying Mark just took your cart, I instantly panic and haul butt out of the clubhouse to in fact see the cart gone. My friend drives me to the range and as I was walking to the cart Mark sees me and says “hey man is that your cart? Sorry I had to commandeer it for a minute.”
So, for me this is the craziest story in a while. The day Mark Wahlberg unknowingly took $10k in camera gear. Definitely a highlight and something I can tell for years to come.
Brett, 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?
My name is Brett Farmer, owner of Farmer’s Fotos.
I first picked up a camera as a pure hobby in 2015. I would it use it here and there every couple months. Nothing serious. In 2018 I started to pick the camera up a bit more consistent. And in 2019 I decided to try to post a photo a day for the entire year. And this really blew this small interest into a major hobby and now today a second job.
In 2019 I met a local realtor and started shooting houses for him, my first client. My first person paying me for my photography.
2020, I was able to start selling some prints of my work. I also took photos of empty streets and malls at the beginning of the pandemic that got me noticed.
2021, I shot the Detroit Grand Prix for the Detroit News and got my first sports front page image.
2022, easily my most successful year in photography. This small hobby took me from dinking around with photographing things around the house to standing on the front of the grid at the Indianapolis 500 in 4 short years.
My photography specialties are sports, real estate, and landscapes.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Sometimes I feel frustrated with my social media growth, but what I’ve learned is followers isn’t a judge of your skill or ability. Most of my clients have reached out to me or connected with me from my social media.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
Being that photography is a second job for me. I have been able to completely reinvest everything I have made right back into photography. This has allowed me to gain the necessary equipment I needed to take high level photography over the years. Especially in sports as you need longer lenses and faster cameras.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.farmersfotos.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/farmersfotos89/
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/100063532266612/
- Other: https://linktr.ee/farmersfotos89
Image Credits
Brett Farmer Farmer’s Fotos