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

Alright, Jasper thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?

When I first picked up a camera, I instantly knew I was interacting with something I liked, but I didn’t really know what direction to point it. Although I liked taking travel pictures of landscapes and things I saw along the way, there was never really an “a-ha” moment until I started pointing it at people. Once there became a bit of a feedback loop of clients liking my work and me liking working with clients, it became a narrowing down of who/what/where to shoot to really maximize my skills and abilities. All of these things came together when a friend asked me to shoot her wedding in Montana in 2013. I had been building up a wealth of skills and knowledge for years in both the photo and video worlds, but once I had a chance to film a wedding, I realized that was going to be the direction I wanted to focus all of that energy. At the time I was still doing odd jobs and bouncing around quite a bit, but realized that, if possible, I wanted to make filming weddings a real job/business. Throughout the course of the next 3 years or so, people would see my work, recommend me, and slowly I started to build up work to show people, and organically the interest and amount of work I got to do built. By 2016 I decided I was going to give up on trying to make money any other way and just go all in on video work (about 90% weddings). Luckily, through amazing clients and their friends and family, the referrals kept coming and every year I got a little better and more booked out to the point where I’m now having to turn people away.

In order to get to the point of where I’m at today, it took literally countless hours of testing, practice, and execution of about a dozen skills that it takes to be good at video work, and only through all of that time and energy invested was I ever able to make a product that resonated with clients. There was absolutely no secret or shortcut to making it into a sustainable business, just simply caring deeply about what I did, and caring enough to pour as much time and/or energy into it as it took to get good. Now that I’m in my tenth year of doing it, I still find something I can improve on nearly every wedding I shoot, and I want to keep that mentality as long as I’m doing it, because it is exactly what got me to the place I am today.

Jasper, 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?

I think what makes my work unique is that I want to connect with my clients not for the sake of my business, but for the sake of connecting with them as human beings. If there was zero money involved in what I did, I would still be out there doing it, as few things bring me as much joy as clients and their families telling me how priceless the memories I have captured for them are. I’ve heard recently from a handful of clients that I worked with years ago just how much it means to them to re-watch their wedding films over the years, and that is exactly the reason why I feel incredibly grateful to get to do what I do. Giving people a lasting gift that can bring them back to some of the best moments of their life is probably the best thing I could imagine doing, and getting to do it on a weekly basis is really an honor.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I just wish I had someone I could have worked with/under in order to collaborate and learn ideas faster. I’ve played around with the idea of doing coaching/mentoring because I would love to give other creatives the opportunity to learn and collaborate in a way that I never was able to.

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

The idea that giving people deals/discounts is a good idea. There is a DIRECT correlation between the amount you discount something and the way that a client values the work you do for them and it’s honestly a mistake I’ve still made recently, even though I should know better.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jaspermeddockproductions.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaspermeddockproductions/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jaspermeddockproductions

Image Credits
All my photos/screengrabs.