We were lucky to catch up with Hayley Fisk recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hayley, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?

I am extremely happy to be a business owner! Although running a business comes with many hard days and sleepless nights, I would not trade it for any full time job. That’s not to say that I haven’t had my moments (while building up my photography business) where I wondered if it would be easier to take on a full-time role. But whenever that thought ran through my head I immediately reminded myself of the reasons why I stepped away from full-time work in the first place. In my entire career, including the last four years of running a business, I only worked in three full-time roles. However, I noticed a startling trend among all three roles: the first few months were enjoyable as I learned the new job responsibilities, but once I hit the six-month mark I felt uninspired because I was doing the same work day in and day out. Although running a business is full of never-ending challenges, I will never trade it for a nine-to-five position. Owning my own business allows me to be creative, try new things, and continue to grow as an artist.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Originally from a very small town in Illinois, I decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue a career in photography upon graduating college with a BFA in photography and a BA in art history in 2012. I was offered an internship with a photographer with whom I idolized throughout my college education and, through that internship, I was introduced to a professional retoucher who owned his own business. He offered me an apprenticeship. From there, I learned how to retouch images that were used for billboards, magazines, movie posters, etc., and I learned about what goes into the final stages of a photo.

For a few years, I worked at various retouching and photo editing jobs including working as a photo editor for sports entertainment networks such as Fox Sports and NFL Network. This is when I started to realize that a career as a retoucher or photo editor was not what I wanted. I enjoyed what I was doing in many of my editing roles and liked the financial consistency and stability that came with full-time or part-time work. However, after about six months, I started to feel as though I was stagnating and because of this, I knew I was ready for something different. Around this time I met a fellow photographer who encouraged me to pick up my camera again and get back to shooting. I started shooting portraits, events, and a little bit of everything because I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to focus on.

After a couple of years of doing test shoots I decided that fashion photography was what interested me most. I was fortunate enough to get a part-time job at a major fashion brand where I expanded my knowledge of lighting for both on figure and Ecom product photography. Working there gave me the confidence to seek out other freelance roles and eventually I was working non-stop for several fashion clients. At the time I thought I was happy, but in the fall of 2019 everything changed for me. One by one all of my fashion clients dropped me to pursue photographers who were more affordable or willing to work full time, which I was dead set against. I reached out to other fashion brands, but had no luck in securing anything that was consistent freelance work.

Around that time a creative agency that focused primarily on the beauty industry reached out to me, and from there I decided to switch gears and try my hand at product photography. This happened right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit LA, which pushed me to build a studio in my home so I could keep working and building up my portfolio. I added beauty photography because many of my product shoots involved on-figure photos so it felt like a natural addition to product photography.

Over the last few years I have grown my six-figure photography business and have a wonderful stream of consistent clients who make me feel valued. I have an amazing manager through Rebel Brand Management who has been a major support in my growth and a work life-balance that I never thought would be possible. I had many moments where I wanted to give up, countless sleepless nights, and so many tears where I thought it would be easier to throw in the towel. But there has always been an inner voice telling me to keep going because the good stuff is on its way. I also would not be where I am today without the constant love and support given to me by my family, friends, and husband. I am fortunate to have an amazing support system of loved ones who never gawked at me when I said I wanted to move to LA to pursue photography. The journey would have been much lonelier and harder without them.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Around 2019, almost two months before the pandemic, I lost almost every single one of my fashion clients mainly due to budget cuts or brands hiring in-house photographers. I was devastated because I worked diligently to get these clients and to build my photo career around fashion photography.

Fortunately, I started dabbling in stylized product photography and working with an incredible creative agency which I still work with today! At first I wasn’t sure if product photography was for me, but over time I came to love it. Shooting product photography was a different flow from what I was accustomed to in shooting fashion. When I was on a fashion shoot everything was so hectic and fast-paced that I was working in overdrive all the time. I also came to realize that my time was rarely respected and I did not feel valued. Quite the opposite, shooting product photography allowed me to focus on being creative and taking the necessary time to create amazing images.

When the pandemic hit LA in the spring of 2020, I already had a studio built in my home and although work slowed due to the shutdown, I never stopped working. I started adding beauty photography to my repertoire when the shutdown was lifted. Beauty photography was a very organic addition to my services because oftentimes when I was hired for a photoshoot with a skincare or makeup brand, they required both beauty and product shots.

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

One of the toughest lessons I had to unlearn was to not worry so much about being perfect. I struggled with perfectionism since I was a child. I always worked hard in school, got good grades, got into a good college, and did everything I thought you were supposed to do to have a successful career and lifestyle. Being a perfectionist got me through many experiences as an adolescent and young adult, or so I thought, but after a couple of years of running my photography business I realized how much of a detriment it was to my work.

In learning to shoot product photography, I really struggled with second-guessing myself and trying to make every shot perfect. This train of thought would often spiral into a major fear of failure to the point that I worried incessantly every time I submitted a project to a client. I hated the idea of disappointing anyone and felt that one bad client review would be a huge setback to my career. I realized how problematic this was when a client asked me to create a shot list from scratch. I completely froze because normally I would shoot exactly what the client told me to shoot. I knew at that moment that being a perfectionist made it impossible for me to trust my creativity and my skill.

Once I got past my perfectionism and fear of failure, I felt like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. I finally felt free to create and because of that, my work has gotten stronger and continues to grow.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hayleyfisk.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/hayleyfiskphoto/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hayleyfiskphoto/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayley-fisk-photo