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

Hi Kelly, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

Growing up, the narrative was always that we were to work hard in school to be able to go to college to then begin a lifelong career.

Not everyone in my family had the option to go to college or at least go right after high school, so it was embedded in me from a young age that doing everything I could to make that privilege a possibility was what I should always work toward.

While I worked very hard in school and worked multiple jobs to be able to fulfill this expectation, I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to study nor what I wanted to pursue for the rest of my life. At only 18 years old, understanding where I wanted to be in ten or even five years was always an overwhelming question for me.

I knew I loved working with children and families, so after exploring a few other career options by working in the fields, I finally settled on secondary education my sophomore/junior year of college. I even decided to attend school year round to achieve my MAT in only 1 calendar year after earning my BA in English and Criminal Justice.

After graduating and working in the education field for 7 years, I started to grow my own family, and that’s when I realized that I wasn’t pursuing my true passion.

At the risk of sounding cliche, I always loved taking and looking at photographs. What I never realized growing up was that this was a job that someone could have full-time. So when my teaching contract was up, and my son had just turned one, I took the risk of leaving education to care for him and to try to build a business out of something that had always brought me such joy.

10 years later, I can still say that I am just as, if not more, passionate about this field than I was when I first held a camera as a small child. I continue to not only enjoy working with families and small businesses to create imagery that best reflects their personalities and visions, but I also love learning about photography from others. I continue to enroll in courses about lighting and post-processing to expand my knowledge and keep up with the changing industry.

From – GASP – $50 sessions to making this into a full-time income that has matched my teaching salary has been quite a rollercoaster. And, admittedly, there have been many times when circumstances outside of my control as a small business owner have made me question this continued risk, but what always brings me right back is the drive that I have as a result of the fact that I truly do love the work that I do.

Kelly, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have a very typical story in that I started sharing photos that I took of my own children, and others started to ask me to take their children’s photos, too. From there, it grew organically as did my passion for the business.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a camera in my hand since as far back as I can remember, and some of my best memories are of flipping through photo albums with my siblings and cousins, but growing up the idea of pursuing a career in photography didn’t exist in my home or sphere of influence.

It was only after my teaching contract was up for renewal that I decided to pursue this passion full-time while raising my young family.

While I often think about what it would have looked like had I pursued this career earlier, I truly don’t know if I could have created the business I have now without having my own children. Not only do I treasure having memories of my kids because they grow so fast, but also, I want to be IN the memories with my own children, and everyone knows how hard that is to do when you’re typically the one behind the camera, right? Which is why I often connect with and to mothers and mother-figures who feel the same way.

In addition to capturing mothers in photos with their loved ones, I also have created a process that allows families to not have to worry about a single detail leading up to the photoshoot. One of the biggest reasons that families choose not to have professional photos taken is because it feels so daunting to find a photographer, choose a location, figure out what everyone is going to where, figure out how to prepare for the session, etc.

With me, families (or couples) do not have to worry about any of that. I guide them through the entire process, style everyone being photographed, offer location options based on their vision, and even allow them to borrow clothing from my exclusive client closet.

As my good friend Kristin Hardwick says, “Let it be easy.” Having your photos taken should not be work. It should feel easy, and I’m so glad that many of my clients share that this has been their experience after working with me.

In addition to making the process easier, all of my packages include print credits because I believe that photos are meant to be viewed in more places than our tiny screens in our back pockets. I can still feel the texture of the album pages at my grandparents’ home. I want my clients to experience that same tangible re-living of their moments together for years to come, too.

After all, ​​I believe in intimacy — in the unabashed affinity for closeness and warmth and affection. And it is this very sentiment that is at the heart of every photo I create with my couples and families in the New England area.I love warm and intimate and fierce love stories. And it is with these intentions that I capture that sweet glance between partners, that soft tug at mama’s skirt or that impromptu embrace that I know my couples and families will cherish forever. You deserve to be present in both the moments and the memories!

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I think one of the biggest misconceptions about creative jobs is that the cost of the service is based on the short amount of face time that occurs in the process of working with clients.

Many assume that my work includes the 1-2 hour photo session (or full day wedding/branding photoshoot) and that’s it except for maybe another 1-2 hours of editing.

For every 1 hour of photography time there exists about 8 hours of backend work to be done from inquiry to planning to traveling to culling to editing to delivering – and there are many financial requirements associated with each of these steps, too!

We have grown to expect to be entertained and served quickly and for an inexpensive rate, but truly valuing artists and artistry means recognizing the exorbitant cost of both financial investments and time when it comes to each creative service and/or product.

In addition, I often have to remind others that I don’t just wear a creative hat when I have my camera or laptop. I also have donned all of the hats that any other business would require – marketing, client communication, research and development, bookkeeping, scheduling, copywriting, and many, many more. Benefits? We don’t have them unless we seek them out and pay for them ourselves, so when you invest in a small creative business, know that you’re investing in way more than what may feel like a short time spent face-to-face.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

At the expense of sounding like a hypocrite based on my response to another question about misconceptions of the creative industry, I too held these same misconceptions when first launching my business in 2013.

Because I felt so passionate about providing the opportunity for families and couples to have professional photographs taken, in addition to feeling like I wasn’t worth charging industry pricing in the first few years of business, I priced myself extremely low. So low in fact that I quickly realized within those years that if I wanted to make any money beyond saving to continually re-invest in new equipment and education, I would have to raise my prices.

This is a practice I have continued to do despite feeling hesitant and discouraged by being told I was quickly growing beyond my core clients’ budgets. To sustain a profitable business, and, better still, a business that I believe serves families and couples in a way that sets me apart from others in this industry, I have to charge what my time and talent is worth as well as what will keep my business thriving and growing.

This lesson was a hard pill to swallow, and I won’t sit here and pretend it doesn’t still keep me up some nights, but I know it is the right thing to do to sustain this business through all of the changes and obstacles that may come my way.      

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kellyannephotographynh.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/kelly_anne_photo
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/kellyannenhphotographer
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-cummings-photographer/