We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chelsea Babin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chelsea below.

Chelsea, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

Coming up with a business name is insanely hard. Originally, when I started my photography journey in high school, I wanted to create something catchy and memorable… so, I came up with Silver Moments Photography. It was a play on silver linings and golden moments, but I never really liked it. In college, sometime around 2018, I decided to rebrand and change the name is Chelsea Babin Photography. I thought about what I wanted the name to be, and just using my name seemed to be the best route to go and I also would not have to really worry about copyright because it’s my own name, after all. Now, under the Chelsea Babin Photography umbrella, I can have other small branches to add to my business.

Chelsea, 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 have always been a creative person and enjoyed all things creative. I always played with cameras as a kid and got my first one when I was about 10 years old. Since then, I have just shot for fun. Now, I have turned my creative hobby into a business. I did not truly dive into portraits until senior year of high school when I joined the yearbook and newspaper. Then, I got my first DSLR as a graduation present that I used to learn on and shoot with throughout college. During college, I was studying Journalism and Electronic Media so I was mostly focusing on taking images that went along with my articles or assignments for my photojournalism classes. My last year of college, I worked for a magazine in Knoxville and became one of the lead photographers for ads and editorials. Then my first wedding for a friend. Then, I officially started offering my photography services. I soon upgraded to a mirrorless camera system from Sony and that is where I have been since! I just started focusing more on building my photography business the last year or so. It has been a journey for sure but I am so glad for it.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Since I had a camera already before deciding to start my business, any income from sessions would go into a separate account so that I could use that for getting my photography business up and going. I still do this to this day, but now that I have more consistency coming in from it, it is much easier to add capital to my business. From the start, I made sure I had created a budget so I could figure out what my cost of doing business was and that was how I set goals for myself and business.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Social media and word of mouth! I am actually part of a local group of girls around my age and we have Working Women Wednesdays and it has been great for some free promoting of my business. Plus, they are usually looking for different types of shoots (portraits, weddings, family, etc.) so it is honestly a great place for me to promote!

Contact Info:

• Website: chelseababinphotography.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chelseababinphotography/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChelseaBabinPhotography/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@chelseababinphoto

Image Credits
Chelsea Babin Photography