We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Hanna Myers-Rivas. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Hanna below.

Hanna, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’ve love to hear an interesting investment story – what was one of the best or worst investments you’ve made? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

As a photographer, the best investment I’ve ever made has definitely been investing time
building a community with fellow creatives. I live in the wonderful small town of Brenham, TX,
and thanks to this tight-knit community, I’ve learned more than I ever could on my own. In the
beginning of my professional career, I had new opportunities through connections with fellow
creatives, where second shooter roles on various sessions helped hone my craft and inspire
me.

Hanna, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

The tagline for Hey Hanna Photography is People | Passions | Plates. It’s what I define as my specialty in photography. ‘People’ refers to portraiture, ‘Passions’ is people taking their creative passions and turning them into vibrant businesses where I capture what they do best, and ‘Plates’ is food and restaurant photography. I work with small businesses and love working with them from the beginning of their business journey and throughout as they expand! Small-town life is vibrant, and there is always something new going on. I love that small businesses reflect that revival, and I’m here to capture it.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

My path to becoming a full-time photographer has been a long and winding one. Photography
started as just a hobby for me over 15 years ago – something I enjoyed purely for the love of
capturing moments and experimenting with edits, just for myself and my friends. About 5 years
back, I began pursuing it professionally while still holding down a full-time job. During that
period, I dedicated myself to honing my style. Finally, this year marked a major milestone when I
transitioned to part-time at my 9-to-5 job in January before taking the leap to running Hey Hanna
Photography full-time just this June.
Turning a passion into a viable career is rarely a linear journey, but I’m immensely grateful for
the unwavering support and encouragement from friends, clients, and past employers that
helped make this dream a reality over the years. Their belief in me gave me the confidence to
persist through the challenges.

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

As a food and product photographer primarily, I find the most rewarding aspect is being able to
immortalize the hard work, creativity, and passion that goes into bringing someone’s vision to life
in the form of a new menu item or product launch. There’s such a long journey of dreaming,
planning, and persevering through challenges before that final accomplishment is ready to be
revealed to the world. My role is to artfully showcase all those labors of love in a way that whets
the appetite and gets people truly excited about experiencing it for themselves.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @heyhannaphotography
• Facebook: Hey Hanna Photography

Image Credits

Headshot taken by Hora de Azul photography.