We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Falyn DeForest a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Falyn, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

Never in a million years did I envision myself being a business owner. I never thought I could make a living off being a photographer. I thought I had to take a more traditional route. It wasn’t until 2020 when I decided to finally take the risk of starting my own business and taking my role as a photographer more seriously. I was absolutely terrified to start working as a creative full time because I didn’t know how to run a business. I also care so deeply about photography, I didn’t want to put the pressure on my hobby and make it seem like a full time job . After 3 years of running my small business I’m so glad I took the risk. It is so fulfilling getting to do something you love every day. There is no reward without risk, and I’m so grateful people see my art and trust me to capture they’re most important life moments.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hi, I’m Falyn with Fade Photographs and I love taking pictures! I’ve been shooting photos forever, but my earliest memories are of me dressing my little sister up in fancy clothes, doing her make up and taking photos with my moms film camera. Which funny enough has come full circle to me taking my daughters photos on film for my personal work. Though not limited, professionally I love focusing on weddings and family portraits. I shoot both digital a film (yes, like old school film) and I have been perfect my craft for many years before I even started my business. I still continue to work on learning the art, as well as giving my clients the best quality and experience possible.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

I always say slow and steady wins the race. I’m the type of person to want to do my best at giving my attention to quality over quantity. In a fast pace, social media driven world I think it’s easy to want to have rapid growth. As much as getting to your end goal as quickly as possible may sound appealing, I know personally the clientele I wanted to build was one of integrity and quality and doing that would take me a little longer than over night success. You really need a solid foundation to build a good clientele off of. Knowing who your ideal client is, with what your mission for your business is will help you along the way.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A good unlearning lesson is social media. There’s so many positives to these platforms but at the same time a huge lesson is comparison is the thief of joy. I’ve had to learn that just because someone else is doing business a certain way doesn’t mean that is going to work for me. For example, scrolling on social media and only following people who are in the same exact business as me was not conducive to my own growth. It’s easy to start second guessing yourself. Instead seek different avenues of inspiration. That will also help you not be a carbon copy of what you’re seeing everyone else do and set you apart from other.

Contact Info:

• Website: fadephotographs.com
• Instagram: @fade.photographs
• Facebook: Fade Photographs by Falyn DeForest

Image Credits
Fade Photographs LLC.