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

Jonathan , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I think that it takes perseverance, drive, and courage to be successful. These traits go hand in hand with success because, on the road to success, you will encounter a lot of speed bumps and hard choices. Perseverance is needed to get back up and keep pushing yourself forward even when it’s hard to look forward at your goal. I feel like even right now, I am going through a hard time with trying to juggle the want to do this creative work full time and being able to support myself in today’s financial environment. You need the drive to keep yourself on track and focused on what you want to do. For me, I think that is covering as many events as I can to keep myself experienced and fresh while still developing my skills. Showing up at all for these events is enough to get you in the door. This leaves courage, the last trait. I think you need to be brave to take some of the leaps necessary to succeed. On the path to success, there are leaps of faith you have to take to see what doors it could open. For me, that was starting my business, which led to me making some incredible connections in the industry. There’s still quite a long road before I reach my goal and before I become successful at what I do, but I believe that I’m on the right path that will get me there.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Jonathan Chen, or as a lot of people call me, Chen. I got into photography in high school through some close friends and ended up buying my first camera in 2014. From there I took my spare time to shoot a lot of car meets, and I took my camera to a couple of local race events out in California as a spectator and just shot what I could. I ended up moving to Utah for college and kept photography as a hobby until around 2021 when I decided to do it full-time. I just went out to car meets and shows and through mutual friends met many people I have the privilege of calling clients AND friends. I specialize in automotive and motorsports photography. I have experience shooting private owner vehicles, show cars, product cars, and race cars both off and on track. I’m most proud of how much growth I feel I’ve had especially since I began. I have a faster workflow and that has allowed me to have a quicker turnaround time for clients. I think that is one of the things that sets me apart from other photographers. Having a quick turnaround on the delivery of a high-quality product helps the client out in being able to have what they need for their next social media post or product launch. Time is money in today’s digital age so the faster I’m able to provide quality content, the happier everyone is!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

This last year I lost a contract with one of my bigger clients and was left to return to a full-time job. It wasn’t what I wanted for myself but to survive, I knew I had to do it and it worked out for the best. I have a stable job that now funds what I want to do and can keep me financially afloat. I also can schedule events for myself that I see as stepping stones to being able to do this work full-time again. It’s not a knockdown to still work a full-time job while running a creative hustle because it allows you to put yourself in a spot where you can prepare yourself to try again.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I love seeing people’s reactions to my work, especially if it’s their first time seeing it, but the best feeling is making an owner fall in love again with a lost project or a car they’ve maybe lost interest in. Being able to capture the beauty of something so personal gives them the drive to keep building their vehicle. That feeling is unmatched by anything else. The other rewarding half is getting to experience some incredible things. Within the last two years, I’ve had the chance to capture some awesome moments for myself and others and I think that is also a feeling that I wouldn’t have anywhere else.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://chenmedia.myportfolio.com/
• Instagram: chen_media
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/jonathan-chen-803