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

Heather , 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?

I have always wanted to do creative/artistic photography. I have done family photography for 8 years and I still do it but I knew I wanted to also be more creative. A couple of years ago when the pandemic started, I told myself now is the time to tackle photoshop and really get in touch with type of photography I’m really passionate about.

I had no idea how I was going to get clients that were interested in my style of creative and fine art photography but I knew I had to do it either way. Honestly the only obstacle was that and me being in my own way, once I figured that out I decided to let that all go and do what made me happy. Now I just continue to keep learning and upping my game and creating, creating, creating.

Heather , 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?

Id wanted to be a fashion photographer since I was 13. I was kind of obsessed with specific models and seeing them in these photographs with cool outfits and artsy scenes created for them was very fun and interesting to me. I took photography in 9th grade but at that time, it was film and developing in the darkroom. I think that sort of overwhelmed me and was hard for me to grasp. I didn’t do much with photography for a while after that. Fast forward to things being much more digital and I got back into it. While my kids were little and I was staying home, I started doing family photography here and there. As it started to get busier, I started a business.

As time went on, I moved in to the artistic stuff, like what I loved when I was younger but with a dark edge. I love to create dark and strange images but I also love beauty portraits. And combining the two. I also love love love flowers and try incorporating them in to almost all of my sessions.

I love meeting clients in person to talk about what interests them and what parts of themselves they want to get in touch with so that we can collab together on making a wonderful creative session for them.
While I do many things, most of my work is dark and moody or has dark tones.

Also, it’s Halloween year round at my studio!

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

In all honesty, the most rewarding thing to me is when people tell me that my work is amazing or that they really love what i do. I think there is always a little bit of imposter syndrome or times when I think I’m in a rut and something isn’t good enough to a goal I’m trying to reach but when others tell me they love it or I get a new client, thats the reward!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I always find building up my social media difficult and time consuming. However, last year, I had a goal to get to 1,000 followers. I kept plugging away, commenting on others posts, hashtagging it up and trying to make connections any way I thought of and in just a couple of months I went from 700 to 1,100. I don’t have the best advice but I did reach my goal and that was also rewarding!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.simoneraephotography.com
• Instagram: www.instgram.com/simoneraephotography
• Facebook: facebook.com/simoneraephotography

Image Credits
Headshot of me Caitlin Mathews Photography all others Simone Rae Photography