We recently connected with Brian Smith and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Brian thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I’m generally conservative in nature which leads me to be fairly risk averse. But many years ago I took a big one that, looking back now, had a big influence on my life today. I spent my high school and college years in small midwestern towns, and my first job out of school was in another small town. Despite being close to family, having a good job, and getting good work experience, I had a persistent feeling that I wanted something different. The only two specifics I had in mind were a warmer climate and the excitement of a bigger city. After feeling this way for a couple of years and living through another cold winter, I made what seemed to many to be an abrupt decision: I quit my job and moved to Houston, Texas. I had a little cash in the bank, and everything I owned fit in a mid-size car. My boss, co-workers, friends and family didn’t say it but I’m sure they all thought I was crazy. I arrived in Texas with my stuff, no job prospects, what I later realized were limited job hunting skills, and no real plan. And to top it off, my timing was terrible, as the economy took a big nosedive soon after I arrived. I slept on a friend’s couch for a few months, and it took me several more months to finally find a job in my field.

After three years in Houston, I was hired by a young company in the PC industry, Compaq, the start of a long career in the IT business. I met my wife here and we raised our family. I was fortunate to be able to retire relatively early. I’ve often wondered what my life would have been like had I not taken that risk and made the decision I did. I’m confident it would have worked out fine. But living in a big city environment has provided me with broad experiences and personal growth opportunities. Working for a company that grew into a large multinational organization provided me with opportunities to travel internationally for business, which led my wife and I to do the same for leisure. Our travel experiences have provided me with many outstanding photo opportunities, and we have a list of future destinations we plan to visit. Of course I’ll always have my camera on hand.

When I took the risk I did many years ago, I didn’t have much of a plan. But I can clearly see the many ways it paid off. It hasn’t always been smooth and there were definitely a few “What have I done?” moments in the early days. There’s been some luck involved and a lot of hard work. It may not have looked like the wisest decision at the time, but I imagine that’s true of a lot of people who follow their instincts.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a husband, father, grandfather and retired IT industry professional living in Houston, Texas. I’m also a photographer who has been navigating the journey from hobbyist to professional. For many years I’ve enjoyed taking landscape photos in interesting and scenic places. When social media came along and I started sharing some of them, I was surprised by the reaction I got, with friends encouraging me to produce calendars or greeting cards. The thought of turning this hobby into a business opportunity entered my mind 4-5 years ago. Since then I’ve worked on developing a social media presence, offering my photos on stock photo sites, found a few local coffee shops to display and sell my work, was invited to participate in a pop-up art show, and held a solo exhibit of my work. My primary effort has concentrated on selling prints, mostly landscapes, but I’ve also shot a couple of weddings, graduations, and other family events, and those have made me think more broadly about new opportunities and offerings.

At every step in this process, it’s been obvious that the key to success is differentiating my work. Competition in the photography business is intense and even overwhelming at times, as advances in digital technology have made even the casual phone photographer a potential competitor. To break through, making your work stand out from the pack has to be a primary objective, but no doubt a difficult one. I’m proud when told that one of my photos of a place or thing that’s been shot many times by many photographers, has a unique look and feel to it that catches the eye. That’s my goal.

I like to think my photos can serve many purposes: provide someone with memories of things they’ve seen or done, inspire them to visit places like our beautiful national parks, or simply relax and enjoy my version of a beautiful place hanging on their wall at home, workplace, or wherever they like.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I started very small and unambitious. I had a Facebook account, but unlike a lot of people I didn’t have a thousand “friends.” On a whim I shared a few of my vacation photos from national parks and a couple of sunset shots, and got a fair amount of attention and likes. So I started going through my photo files and posting some favorites and often got similar reactions. I decided to create a page dedicated to my photography. I asked friends to share it with their networks as a way to expand my audience. I purchased a few Facebook ads, to boost my posts to a larger audience that I could define, by age group, interests, geographic area, and a number of other criteria. Over a period of about three years my followers have grown to over two thousand. I created an Instagram account that’s also dedicated to my photography, and used some of the same strategies. I tried one of the sites that offer and even guarantee that they’ll provide new followers, for a fee. My experience was that it didn’t work and isn’t worth the money. I got a one-time bump in followers that gradually fell off afterward.

My Facebook and Instagram accounts contain links to a website I created using FineArtAmerica, which offers my work for sale in a variety of products, formats and sizes. From my experience I’d recommend a planned, thoughtful use of available social media platforms, with a caveat: the enormous numbers of users and amount of content on these platforms means there’s tremendous competition for attention, which puts a premium on differentiating your photos, service offerings and messages.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Thinking about this question almost makes me laugh, as my answer is that it’s rewarding just being considered “a creative.” I started out my career as an accountant, an occupation with a reputation not typically associated with creativity or artistic expression. When I first started taking photos many years ago, I enjoyed capturing a scene or event mostly for memories and the idea of creativity never entered my mind. Over time I started hearing that my photos captured someone’s interest in a unique way, or made them see something differently, or made them realize the beauty in something they’d seen many times before without noticing. It took a long time but I realized there must be something in the way my brain works that causes me to see things differently than most others, and it helps me capture settings or scenes in ways that others don’t see. That’s gratifying and often has me thinking about new ways to approach my work, even if it makes me wonder if I’m a little weird.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/72-brian-smith
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brian_smith_photography/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/briansmithphotography/
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/briansmith10