We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katie & Morgan Hallas a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Katie & Morgan, thanks for joining us today. What’s been one of the most interesting investments you’ve made – and did you win or lose? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

Our best investment yet has been a hiring a business coach, we hired ours in the spring of 2021 and have been with him ever since! Our business went through a total transformation not long after we started coaching and I recommend it to absolutely everyone. We started raising our prices, booking more than ever before, and feeling a new confidence in the services we offer which really changed our trajectory from that point on. I think it’s incredibly important for all new business owners (creatives especially) to get outside help and another perspective on the backend side of things.

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?

We’re Morgan and Katie, a husband and wife photography team based in Nashville! We started shooting weddings together in 2019, my boss at the time asked me to be her wedding photographer and we pretty much immediately went head first into weddings from that point on! I grew up always doing photography as a hobby and side gig through high school, but found most of my passion in photographing couples! Less than a year after shooting my first wedding, I was able to quit my job and pursue photography full time with Morgan by my side.

We have a documentary style approach, which means we’re very hands off throughout the wedding day and we never want anything to feel like a photoshoot. After getting married ourselves we had an even deeper understanding of the emotional rollercoasters weddings often are, and I think that helps us document our couples days in a really authentic way. We give just enough instruction to make our clients feel comfortable in front of the camera, but try our best to let everything unfold as it naturally would. Our couples really value that we’re focused more on truthfully telling their unique story than curating the perfect Instagram photo!

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Jai Longs “Creative Business Make Your Break” podcast (and all of his other resources) have been an absolute game changer. His mindset towards business really resonated with us, I love how he strives to have a super personal, client centered business that’s fun but also extremely successful. We’re all about serving our clients to the best of our abilities, always adapting, and having a dang good time doing it!!

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I’ve always been drawn the nostalgia of old photographs and feel really lucky to have so many of my childhood to look back on now that I’m older. I think it’s so cool and rewarding that we get to document those memories for other people and create really meaningful photos to be passed down for generations! A lot of the times at weddings, we’re photographing a room full of people who may never be all together like that again and that’s really special to freeze those moments for our couples.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hallasphoto.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hallasphoto/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hallasphoto
• Other: Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/hallasphoto/ TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@hallasphoto

Image Credits
Jiana Taylor (only for the photo of us, the other photos are all our own)