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

Harley, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We love asking folks what they would do differently if they were starting today – how they would speed up the process, etc. We’d love to hear how you would set everything up if you were to start from step 1 today.

Lessons learned as a photographer.

1. Learning to shoot and edit takes a lot of repetition in the real world. Stop watching a thousand youtube videos and go out and actually practice. Consistency is key! If I were to redo the whole journey I would schedule specific times to shoot and edit every week. (shoot Monday & Thursday, learn post production Tuesdays and Friday). Start from the bottom, Grab a course on how to operate a camera. Now proceed to learn and experiment every with every nob, dial, and switch. When you understand the camera operation, proceed on to learning about composition, position, and lighting. Now the fun stuff! Dive into Lightroom and photoshop, and start experimenting! Initially you might find these tools intimidating and complicated which is totally normal but don’t sweat it… i found a solution! A little hack to learning new tools, simply copy a youtube tutorial on a project and redo it a few times over until it becomes forever engrained into your brain! I used this method to learn photoshop FAST…..

2. Get decent gear the first time. I get it, you’re probably on a budget but i can guarantee you, if you’re taking this serious, you’re going to want to upgrade a few months down the road and you’re going to end up spending more than you would have had you simply made better gear choices initially. My recommendation…… don’t use a kit lens.
I would buy one of the lower priced mirrorless bodies, Sony has some good options. (biased;). Lens really depend on what you’re intending to shoot. For portraits I would snag a 85mm f1.8 prime lens. ( do your research ). You can land with a full mirrorless setup for around $800. Remember this is an investment that can be earned back with only a few photoshoots!

3. Get fast Sd cards. You might do a backflip when you see the price of a fast card but trust me, you’re going to be punching walls after missing important shots because your Sd cant keep up with you blasting away….:(

4. Filters. If it has reflections, you NEED a Cpl. ( #1 must have when shooting cars). If you want soft blooming highlights, you need mist filters. I personally use 1/8 and 1/4 mist filters. If you want daytime long exposures and video, you will need a Nd filter to help cut out light.

5. Actively look for clients. Don’t think you can hide under the covers and still have everyone book you, trust me, I tried that. Figure out an effective marketing strategy.

6. You will be put in uncomfortable situations. Embrace them and remember that growth doesn’t happen without pain or sacrifice.

7. Don’t price yourself much lower than the average of other local photographers. Learn how to value your time.

Harley, 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?

Growing up, I had an interest in art. I would occasionally paint a landscape scene on canvas but it wasn’t quite scratching the itch that I always felt. A creative itch. At around 18, I purchased my very first camera, a Nikon D5600! Now I wasn’t satisfied with just knowing how to use it, I wanted to know how and why this damn thing worked the way it did! I became obsessed with every aspect of photography as i soon realized, certain photographs really resonated with me and made me feel a certain way. I never could really put that feeling into words though, it even strikes me pretty strange sometimes! Later on I found myself deep diving in color theory and now thoroughly enjoy color grading and its a big part of my images!

I’m a huge aviation and sports car fan… some even call me a geek, (I call them weird). Automotive and aviation photography are the only two niches that i see myself pursuing in the long term. Thats what I’m passionate about. And most other shoots outside of that, while usually fun, turn out to feel a little monotonous and sometimes i catch myself dreading post production. You have to be willing to do the boring stuff too though…

In todays digital age of living on social media, theres a never ending demand of quality photo and video services. If you bought a nice car, theres a good chance you want good photos of it, just to show off…. or whatever…… I don’t care. I try my best to get creative and capture things in a different perspective than seen from the naked eye to really showcase what we all miss in the mundane day to day life.
My goals for the future are to bring quality content to the public and hopefully progress my way up to working with an automotive brand sometime in the coming years!

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I wish I knew how easy it is to learn the few tools in photoshop that you need to clean up your images. whether it be sensor dust spots or just unwanted distracting garbage. After I discover how to clean up my photos, they improved a lot!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Once I got into a competitive marketplace, i quickly realized that neither the world or any individual will stop for you, regardless your situation. You need to learn how to overcome obstacles fast or you will be run over. My motto….. if someone else can… so can I!

Contact Info:

• Website: 21borders.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/21borders/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/21brs_media

Image Credits
all images are my own