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

Josa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I’m happy to report I do make my living from capturing full-time. There is always room for growth but if I’ve learned anything from being a professional full-time photographer and videographer it’s that every year gets a little bigger and bigger. Although, you might not realize it right away you go from debating getting a 9-5 job because you just don’t seem to be making enough to all of the sudden you’re making what you’d make at a 9-5 and more doing something that fulfills your creative spirit and have so much passion for.

I don’t think there is really any secrets to making your passion a full-time, paying job but I do think the time you put in to yourself and your craft you will get back it just may not be immediate. I started off in the photography world spending a lot of time working for other professionals in the field. Learning everything I could, making life long connections and all while also making a good amount of money for my experience and time. The great thing about the photography field is there are so many professionals out there already doing it full-time and a lot of them want to help you grow and build your own company. My closest friends are from my photography ventures and I have an amazing community of creatives I get to be apart of and help bring each other up in the industry.

One of the major steps in my professional career actually included quitting or distancing myself from working for other companies. You can make a decent income working for other companies but a lot of the times it is only a small amount of what you can make working for yourself. That being said I do still work for some companies to fill up my calendar but not nearly as much as I use to. Although, quitting these jobs seemed daunting and scary I found that my calendar had no problem filling itself up with work for myself. I have learned to be patient with my open dates as I find even if I get scared I’ll waste a weekend not capturing and making money most the time I get booked or enjoy a day off which gives me time to recenter, do something I love outside of photography and come back the next week with rejuvenated energy.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am Josa Comstock and I am the owner of Josa Comstock Photography, LLC. I am a professional photographer and videographer specializing in weddings, equine and lifestyle. I’m an authentic documentarian capturing real and true to life moments.

I have always had a passion for capturing photos and videos. I use to always watch my dad capture our family vacations and activities and he always made sure I had access to capturing equipment throughout my childhood. I went to college at College of Lake County and received my associates in dance. Although I loved dance I couldn’t see myself making a living out of it. I took a gap semester where I took a film photography class. I was absolutely hooked. I transferred to Columbia College Chicago where I received my Bachelor of Arts in commercial photography. I created my LLC shortly after graduating in 2019 and have been on this incredible journey ever since.

I think the biggest thing that sets me apart from my fellow creatives is I try to let my clients time in-front of the camera be as natural as it can be. I start out by giving very basic directions to see what my client naturally wants to do before giving additional guidance so that they are captured well. I’ve watched a lot of professionals over the years and I think sometimes coming in and taking complete charge of every aspect of the capturing and posing can be overwhelming and sometimes even take away part of the authenticity of the moments being captured. I try to make sure I always keep it real while also providing the assistance that is needed to make my subjects comfortable being themselves.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Funding my business was a slow one. I learned mostly on what we call consumer level camera equipment. I wouldn’t change it though. Learning on lower level equipment makes you a resourceful and adaptive creator. My biggest lesson here was you can make professional level captures on consumer level equipment. I worked quite a few side gigs and slowly built my camera army I have today. There’s always something new to get but prioritize by what you need and you’ll make the right investments in your company. I found after the first year of having my LLC my income was easily getting me about 2-3 new pieces of camera gear a year. Being now 5 years in the business I have my little girl dream amount of cameras and lenses. Another great option if you get stuck between what to buy or simply can’t afford the upgrade there are a lot of great rental places! I did this quite a bit when I was starting out and didn’t have the finances or the amount of work yet to justify a bigger purchase.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

This one is hard to accept when you are starting out but now after 5 years of being in business I can honestly say the best source of new clients is always word of mouth. Building your network is so important to longevity and repeating clients. This is something that again seems impossible in the beginning but once you’ve reached a certain amount of people and captured a certain amount of sessions it starts happening naturally without you having to put in much effort into connecting with people. That being said, it is also vital to have an up to date, relevant and clean social media and website. Once you start getting recommended I find a lot of people check out my work online before making contact. If they look you up and there’s error pages or even worse no pages or out of date pages you might lose potential work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.josacomstockphotography.com
• Instagram: @josacomstockphotography & @josacomstockphotographyllc
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JosaComstockPhotography/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josa-comstock-00835427a
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@josacomstockphotography

Image Credits

Josa Comstock Photography, LLC.