We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Julie Hamlin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Julie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s easy to look at a business or industry as an outsider and assume it’s super profitable – but we’ve seen over and over again in our conversation with folks that most industries have factors that make profitability a challenge. What’s biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?
One of the biggest challenges to profitability in the family/portrait photography industry is finding the clients who want to invest in a photographer who has the skillset and level of expertise to produce high quality images over what many think they can just capture with their cell phones these days. Cell phones do indeed have incredible capabilities to capture photos better than they ever had in the past, but they will always fall short to a professional photographer’s ability to tell your story through their lens.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Julie Hamlin, and I am the owner and photographer behind Sacred Sage Photography in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I have loved photography since I was a child, first learning how to capture photos using my dad’s film and Polaroid cameras in the 1980’s. I became much more serious about photography in High School, and then in college when I began learning about photography fundamentals, such as light and composition, and how to develop my own film in the darkroom. However, I did not go to school for photography, or begin working professionally in the field until recently. After college, I worked my way up in a company to eventually head sales and marketing for them. This career provided me with so much, but a piece of me always felt so unfulfilled. A piece of me always knew I wanted to be my own boss, and work as hard for myself as I was working for others. I spent 16 years building other people’s dreams. And in doing so, I learned a tremendous amount about business and customer relations. Also, during this time, I was blessed to become a mom. And as the story goes for many family, child, and portrait photographers that I know, I became interested in photography again when this chapter of my life started. All of a sudden, the photos I would take of my family, were catching the attention of people close to me. Eventually I decided to upgrade my old camera gear, as technology in the digital world of photography was quickly advancing, and a side-hustle of taking people’s photos quickly blossomed. For several years, I maintained my full-time career, while growing a tiny business that I had only dreamed of being able to take to the next level. Then March of 2020 came. The pandemic was ultimately the catalyst for me to walk away from my career and start building a new dream. And amidst a pandemic, I grew my business that year into something that exceeded all of my expectations. I am primarily a family photographer, specializing in children and babies, maternity, portraiture, and occasionally events and branding. In 2021 I became an official member of the National Association of Professional Child Photographers (NAPCP), achieving Master Certifications in both baby and child photography. I was also accepted into Click Pro, which is one of the most highly sought-after and respected global organizations of top female photographers in the world. These are organizations that provide me with incredible affiliations, as well as credibility in this industry. Quickly after both of these achievements, I became a brand ambassador for a lens company here in the US called LensBaby. At the end of 2021, I was awarded a Top 100 Award by NAPCP, winning several merit awards for my work. At the start of 2022, I officially became the New Mexico Ambassador for NAPCP, as well as a Top 100 artist again this year. I feel as though I have been working harder than ever to finally design a life around doing what I love. I have the most amazing clients, and without them, I would not have the opportunity to do this. I am always so humbled when a client asks me to capture their moments and tell their stories. I absolutely love people, and it is a tremendous honor to capture people’s lives with my lens.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
I believe my greatest strategy for growing clientele up to this point has been consistency. I have continued to be an artist who consistently produces work that I am proud of. My business has continued to grow mostly from repeat business and referrals. I hold myself to very high standards. I believe that people know that about me, and they know that not only am I reliable, but I am also very good at what I do. I try to be competitive in my pricing, but still affordable for the quality of work that I produce. It is also very important to maintain a personal connection with my clients. They know that I truly care about them.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
I believe creating content that people want to see from you is one of the keys to building a good social media presence. When I started my business pages on social media, I began sharing the client work (with permission) that was most like the business brand I wanted to represent. I share images that I am immensely proud of, or that I know will make my viewers feel something. I also share images that tell a story. Though I do many other types of photography, I may not share them all. I don’t want my page to have a branded product shoot next to a newborn shoot. My social media represents the photography I want to do more of, and the photography that I want to be known for doing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sacredsagephotography.mypixieset.com/
- Instagram: @sacred_sage_photography
- Facebook: @SacredSagePhotography