Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Carli Hobson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Carli, appreciate you joining us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I first picked up a camera when I was a junior in high school. I quickly fell in love with the process of creating beautiful photographs, but even more than that I quickly fell in love with the process of being an entrepreneur. But anyone who has started a business knows, its not easy at the start. Especially in the creative world.

Like most new photographers I started taking pictures of anyone and anything and charged little to nothing just to get some exposure, and experience. I was fortunate enough to have grown up in a small town where I was very involved in school and community, so I had a lot of connections which really helped me to get opportunities to start scaling my business.

My business organically grew. I started it when social media marketing was really just starting to take off. Facebook was a young photographers dream back then. All I had to do was post and tag my clients and I had new people calling regularly. As I started to gain more experience, I started investing in myself with new equipment and education. And consistently started charging more for my work.

In 2015 after a couple years of my husband joining the business to do videography, we went full time with our photo/video company. It was scary at first to take a risk and completely jump in, but it was the best decision we ever made.

From 2015-2018 we hustled hard, and we started to really make a name for ourselves as a premiere choice for a photo/video team in our area. Our reputation grew and so did our pricing. We were able to charge more and shoot less, which gave us more opportunities to spend with our growing family. And we now are enjoying a business that provides well for our family, while also giving us freedom and flexibility.

I don’t know if there is anything specific we could have done to sped up the process. I am glad things have worked out the way they have. I believe strongly that God is in the frameworks of our lives, and I think any faster growth we may have experienced could have led to burnout or other struggles. I also believe that there is joy within the growth. Too often people are looking for ways to skip steps and get to the finish line, but only to get there and still not be satisfied.
Fulfillment doesn’t come from more clients, or more money, or more followers, it comes from taking pride in what you do. It comes in enjoying the mundane day to day tasks.

We love being able to work for ourselves. It comes with its challenges, but we wouldn’t want it any other way.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I started shooting in 2008, as a junior in high school. I took a graphic communications class and it was there I learned all about photoshop, digital photography and more. I fell in love with it!

I’ve always been a people person. I grew up being very social, outgoing and involved with many clubs, sports and organizations in school. Was involved in church community, and at my high school job. Photography gave me an opportunity to meet new people, get to know them, and create lasting memories for them. My favorite part has always been and always will be the people.

As a husband and wife photo/video team we started out primarily shooting weddings. For many years we would shoot upwards of 30+ weddings a year, along with commercial work, family and other portraits. Over the past few years we have been scaling back on weddings and focusing more on commercial work and branding sessions.

Weddings will always hold a special place in our hearts. We’ve had the opportunity of shooting weddings all over the US, as well as Hawaii and Canada. But as our family has grown, our desire to be home more and travel less has taken priority.

We focus now on helping local small businesses grow their online presence. We still shoot a handful of weddings every year, but our commercial side has grown now to be about 70% of our total income.

I think one of the things we are most proud of is how much care we have always put in to getting to know our clients. I said before but the people and connections we have made over the years is what has kept us going all. We have made lifelong dear friends because of this business.

How’d you meet your business partner?

My husband and I met in high school. He was a grade above me in school, but we started running around with mutual friends and we instantly made a connection. We were married in 2011, and at the time we had life all planned out.

Beau grew up on a farm and it had always been his plan to continue down that path. At that point I had been running my photography business for a few years and was starting to get really busy with it. I was making decent money, and was seeing a lot of growth and success.

6 months after we were married Beau blew his knee out really bad playing basketball and had to have an intense surgery that laid him up for about 4 months. That was a trying time in our marriage and life. We had just purchased our first home, and were just trying to figure out how to be adults. When Beau had recovered from surgery, things had changed within his future of farming. To make a long story short, sometimes working with family is not always the best situation and we had to pivot at that time. For the next 12 months Beau jumped between a few different jobs, and took a position at a manufacturing plant locally. It was a night shift position. Less than ideal but at the time we just didn’t see any other options. The next 6 months were some of the hardest months of our entire marriage. Beau became extremely unhealthy working that job, we hardly saw each other, and any free time we had he was exhausted and never able to recover from the night shift hours. We knew something had to change. This wasn’t working for us.

In July of 2013 we took a leap of faith and Beau quit that job and decided to go back to school. And we were putting all of our faith into my photography business to support us solely at that point. For the next couple of years Beau started tagging along with me to weddings and sessions and started learning videography. He took some digital media classes in school, and we started to envision a life where we could work together running this business full time.

A decade later and we could not imagine this is where we’d be. But it never would have happened had we not endured those hardships in the beginning. This small town farm boy who had never picked up a camera or had any real interests in a creative profession, now a full time videographer. I think the moral of this story is, don’t box yourself in to what you might be capable of.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

2020 was a wild year for everyone. While most businesses saw a lot of struggle, we were actually ones who benefited from the craziness of the pandemic. Everyone was canceling their big city weddings and coming to places like rural Idaho to get married. We had so many last minute bookings, small weddings and elopements in the late summer/fall of 2020. We had 12 weddings in 6 weeks and it was kind of chaotic! haha

2021 and 2022 didn’t seem to slow down either. It seemed like the world took that pause during the pandemic and then turned the dial up full blast the next couple of years. We had an overflow of weddings in 2021 and many commercial clients were also working on building more online presence at the time. Our business grew drastically during those few years and 2022 which made the most we had ever made.

But, it wasn’t sustainable. We were burnt out. We had gone from making decisions based out of fear (from not knowing what was going to happen in the world) to taking a step back and realizing that nothing is ever worth losing your physical or mental health or relationships over.

We decided to push forward into 2023 with some new goals and visions in mind. How to continue to honor our values of providing excellence for our clients, and putting our kids and family at the top of our priority list. We made a large jump in our wedding pricing. This was scary but we knew it was necessary. This has led to less bookings, but more peace of mind.
2023 has naturally been a slower year for us. At first it was something that terrified us. But we quickly realized that once again God was behind every detail. We needed this year. We needed space to breath, regroup and figure out what we really want.

We’ve made less money this year, but still more than enough for our needs. And actually we’ve been the least stressed, which no amount of money can ever actually buy.

And I truly believe honoring these seasons, will always lend to opportunities and potential in the future. We just booked our biggest commercial client to date. A year long contract for 2024 (and probably will continue for years to come).

Contact Info:

• Website: www.carliandbeau.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/carliandbeau
• Facebook: facebook.com/carliandbeau
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@cbcreative
• Other: vimeo.com/carliandbeau
• Weddings: www.carliandbeau.com
  Corporate: www.cbcreative.com