We were lucky to catch up with Dan Ross recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dan , appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

My journey into photography was actually seeded by my interest in weather. I’ve loved thunderstorms since I can remember, and once I was old enough to drive, I began venturing out to look at them – aka storm chasing. Naturally I wished I could take the clouds home with me, thus photography became a must. I started at the bottom with disposable film cameras, getting awful, poorly exposed shots that did no justice to the skies I saw. I had to invest in a more legitimate camera, and so I did. Luckily, my brother was already deep into nature photography and served as a guide for me to learn the essentials of the craft.

Typically my learning process was: 1)Read/research. 2)Experiment and apply what I learned. 3)Ask my brother for advice. Asking for help came last because I’m stubborn and always want to do the thing myself. This isn’t necessarily best, but for me new concepts stick better when there’s a struggle involved. It makes the lessons more memorable. To ask my brother first felt like looking up the answer in the back of the textbook. It was too easy too forgettable. Of course I would always end up asking him, if only to double-check what I thought I’d learned on my own. Access to a mentor is invaluable, and I was very fortunate to have one.

In hindsight, taking a beginner photography class would have been helpful at the start – not just the lessons I would have learned, but the connections I’d have made. Your peers share your interest, but are coming from different backgrounds and following different trajectories. Who knows what I might have learned (or might still learn) from someone pursuing portrait photography, or sports photography, or artistic photography? Other students would be working with different cameras/equipment as well, exposing me to a broader range of tools early on. The stubborn solo approach has its merits, but can also keep you walled off from opportunities. You’re just underexposing yourself I guess.

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’m Dan Ross and I’m a treasure hunter of sorts. My loot is the scenes I capture with a camera and my wealth lies in the experiences I gain while on the hunt. The subject is nature – severe storms in particular. I’ve built a small online photography business selling usage licenses as well as photo prints on a variety of surfaces (paper, canvas, metal, etc). Some of my work has aired on PBS and The Weather Channel, as well as other smaller networks. Photo prints can be purchased on my website.

Storm scenes are no doubt ominous and scary, often evoking fear and anxiety. However, they’re also surreal and awe-inspiring. To me, storms are the great mountains of the cloudscape. It’s as if a national park suddenly appeared in the sky, only to vanish several hours later. It’s their fleeting nature that makes them so special to capture in a photograph. I want to share these storms with my clients; provide them with a rare piece of sky that will never be seen again, as no two storms are exactly alike. Hopefully my prints fill them with the wonder I feel when I’m standing there in the Great Plains next to a cloud bigger than Mount Everest. I may be biased, but I think everyone needs a cloud or two in their living space.

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

Funding my photography has been a very incremental process. I’d find small ways to scrounge up bits of money for new equipment. Shopping at thrift stores and garage sales is a great example. Why spend hundreds on furniture and clothing when you can spend tens? Or even less? Get real with yourself about how important having the ‘newest thing’ really is. I also took advantage of credit card and checking account sign up bonuses. Take that route with caution though, and don’t start using them more just because you have more of them. Utilizing online marketplaces to buy and sell items (picking) for profit is another area I dabbled in. Once I scored over a hundred old Nat Geo books for free and managed to sell them a year later for hundreds of dollars. Lastly I would simply choose cheap/free forms of entertainment like hikes in the park or reading. Overspending on short-term indulgences is just robbing your future entrepreneurial self. Don’t do it.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

No adventure is complete without some misadventures… Several years ago I was camping at Badlands National Park in South Dakota after a memorable storm chase. Just the day before I’d witnessed a supercell thunderstorm produce three tornadoes and I was still riding high with excitement. I went hiking in a dry creek bed, looking at the rocks while replaying the scenes from yesterday in my head. Ironically I was paying no mind to a small storm parked a few miles away over the higher terrain, raining into the gulleys and ravines that fed the very creek I was standing in. The sky was blue above me, but a flash flood was coming my way. I had set my camera down about ten yards away when I heard a strange sound. I looked up just in time to see my camera become engulfed in a rush of muddy, debris-filled water. After standing there in shock for a moment, I quickly exited the creek, running through knee deep water that would continue to rise after I escaped. My camera along with all my shots from the day before were gone. Cameras and lenses are expensive, but what hurt more was losing that memory card. Now those scenes only exist in my mind. Fortunately it was not the death of my photography business (or me for that matter!), but a blow nonetheless to my funds and morale. All you can do sometimes is pick yourself up and keep moving forward.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://2-dan-ross.pixels.com/
• Instagram: @untamed_earth_photo
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DanRossPhotography
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DanRoss11