Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jon Hargett. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Jon, thanks for joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

It took me about 2-3 years before I really started to see my creative work reach full-time job levels of income. Starting out, I had no formal website or marketing strategy and relied solely on word of mouth. I wasn’t charging nearly as much as I probably should have been, but I was making incredibly strong connections with my clients and recommended clients that would later support my new networking opportunities moving forward.

I spent the first year building my portrait portfolio, slowly raising my pricing after reaching personal income milestones as I purchased more gear to support my craft, but eventually I knew that if I was going to prove to myself that I could make a living off this, I needed more avenues of income. I had dabbled in weddings but at the time, I wasn’t confident in my work to charge the higher dollar amounts.

Through my previous clientele, I started offering packages for small businesses that either they, their family members, or their friends were owning and operating. This included headshots and portraits, product, and corporate real estate imagery. I then took those images and built a small portfolio to start pitching to industry specific jobs/clients.

I started working as a real estate listing photographer which paid $50 a house for very simple coverage (only taking about 10mins a house), eventually averaging about up to 20 houses a week. This eventually lead to sub-contracting with realtors and home owners and a few higher ticket clients. I recently had my gear stolen and have had to put this part of my income on hold, but it ended up becoming a safe net of income for me to rely on.

I opened my bookings to product and food photography, automotive photography, really anything that could make money from photography. I was able to find these various leads utilizing services like Thumbtack (which at the time had a very different pricing system) which is a lead generating service where you can set preferences for target clients in the area.

By having these various avenues for income, I was able to supplement any downtime during the year and also curb my burnout. Having all the experience and exposure to various creative environments has helped me confidently pursue higher ticket jobs which supplement the majority of my income today.

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

Hello! For those that already know me, hi hello and thank you for all the support you’ve given me throughout my creative journey here in KC! For those that are new, it’s nice to meet you!

My name is Jon, I’m a photographer based out of KCMO. Though I originally started as a videographer, I started my professional journey as most KC photographers do as a senior and family portrait photographer. I eventually expanded into all kinds of photography related fields such as: weddings, product, food, automotive, and real estate photography that supported this freelance lifestyle. I’ve also been working part/full time to support those seasonal droughts.

As I continue to support myself through my client work, I’ve been focusing on exploring who I am as a creative and what I can offer to the community to not only elevate those around me, but in turn elevate myself. After a year or so of being back in the KC creative scene, I’ve learned a lot about the current creative climate and want to try and offer programs and events that I think will provide more opportunity for creatives and models to grow in this field alongside me.

This year I launched The Model Project Center which focuses on creating more opportunity and on-set experience to aspiring models. The program focuses around offering reoccurring photo opportunities to models to keep their portfolios up to date through a discount incentive pricing structure that rewards investment on the model’s time and efforts. The idea behind this structure is to create an easier financial entry for models while providing education on what values they can bring to their collaborations with myself and other photographers.

The Model Project Center also focuses on creating more opportunities for creatives to work within industry standard environments by hosting/creating events with commercial clientele and encouraging time efficient content creation under the the guidance of Brand Identity and shot lists. This also expands into hosting creative events with hands on workshops and guest speakers within the respected industry.

I’ve been blessed with an incredibly supportive community, new creatively passionate friends, and I’m excited to see where this year will take me!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Back in 2017, due to a complex life situation, I found myself suddenly dropping everything here in KCMO and moving to PA to start a business with a former friend. We co-founded a LAN center, which is like those internet cafe’s you hear about over in Asia, and it ended up occupying a majority of my time. Though I was still able to be creative and create the content for the various marketing campaigns I was heading, my rate of portrait photography significantly dropped. At the time this pivot was necessary, but it did set me back creatively about 4 years and I ended up losing a lot of my creative identity and ambition. I was able to learn a lot about business and community which I set the foundation for how I re-approached my time here in KC.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Through my journey so far, I have learned A LOT. I’ve experienced so many environments and I’ve constantly been on the move. Though business has been good enough to keep me a float, my current ambition is to travel more. This past year I’ve reached the point that I’m taking on several out of state gigs and it’s reminded me how much I miss traveling. I’m hoping to utilize my network to find ways to see more of the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jonhargettphotography.com
• Instagram: hargettmems
• Other: The Model Project Center: IG – @the.model.project.center