We were lucky to catch up with Kyle Coleman recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kyle, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s talk about keeping costs under control when growing. How have you managed to keep costs from getting out of control?

Keeping costs under control as you grow, hm.

A topic near and dear to my wallet and my heart. This is a challenge for anyone growing or starting a business. Particularly, photographers. All of our equipment is expensive. And it takes a lot of equipment to be able to provide a product a client would want to buy. It’s not just the camera or the lens it’s the computer to edit and then an editing program subscription. It’s the lighting, it’s memory cards and the batteries – and then a way to charge the batteries. It’s kind of crazy what goes into producing just one professional image.

There’s always this sort of pressure, when you buy a new piece of gear, to recoup the dollars you just spent as fast as possible. Because you have to justify that purchase, right? So you come up with a product you want to offer. You do your research on what gear you need to provide that product and then you do more research on the available products. And almost always your buying power and the quality of the product are at odds. Spend more, provide a better product. Spend less and learn to then upgrade later? Figuring out what accomplishes the goal vs buying the best piece of gear out there, is the challenge you’re facing with every purchase.

Does this ‘new thing’ give me more access to opportunity? Is it something I can grow with? How many products can I now offer with this piece of gear? You’re just playing mental gymnastics trying to justify the dollars. When if money weren’t an issue you would have bought that item 30 minutes ago instead of reading the 19th comment in the review section just to make sure you don’t buy the wrong item. But you can’t just buy things. You have to be mindful of the choices you’re making. Especially if you’re doing this while you’re stuck in a life (job) you don’t like. I mean how easy is it to start a business while simultaneously needing to pay rent, make car payments etc. There aren’t just magical dollars out there to fund your new or growing business. So every choice you make is a critical one if you endeavor to change your life/financial situation as soon as possible.

Photography is especially difficult on the pocket because things are so expensive. And new technology is coming out every few months. So that thing you just bought? 90 days later is now out dated. Now there’s a new piece of equipment that can do what yours can do but better, faster and more efficiently. So now you’re competing with the next shooter who made the choice to upgrade 90 days after you. And in that moment it comes down to visibility. Who does the client, both of you want, see first?

And now we’re talking more money. Because visibility comes from accessibility. How easy or hard is it for you to connect with you prospective client. Marketing, I’m talking about marketing. Great so you’ve spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours (or in my case, years) crafting your skills to that of a level people will pay for. But who cares? If they don’t know you exist. Most people who run successful businesses think about it like this – “I’m in the business of marketing and I’m marketing a product I offer.” Your primary focus is gaining clients, clicks and views. And, sure, there are free platforms out there and if you’re a social media monster maybe thats all you need. But those of us who haven’t mastered the art of social media or simply don’t have the time, we have to pay for marketing. There are different schools of thought out there on how much you should spend. But either way, you’re spending if you ever want to get seen. And it’s never cheap.

So how does an up and coming business create a marketing budget? Truth is maybe you don’t. Maybe as you grow your skill and your gear cache you can’t afford both. Its this constant tug and pull between “do I invest in my equipment or marketing services I can provide now?” And there’s no right answer. There’s not like a rule book with step by step Ikea directions. And there’s always a missing screw. Especially if this is your first business.

Anyway. Here’s a recent example.

So I recently dreamt up a product that I want to provide. Its nothing special or a wow product but it expands what I can offer and its relatively inexpensive. Im calling it Instant Pix. Think mobile Photo Booth. I bought a mobile photo printer and the items needed to make it run. The idea is, I reach out to event coordinators and offer to come out to take photos of people and print the photo right then and there. They walk away with a souvenir, a desk photo, a fridge picture etc. It’s on high quality 4×6 photo paper. Call it a physical memory. And its pretty cool. I can see myself being willing to pay for that product. All together the cost to me was $149 for the printer, $40 for the photo paper/ink and couple hours researching products that includes chatting with product specialists online.

I buy the item (on credit, obviously) take it home and try to sync it with my camera equipment. All good after about an hour. Now that I know it works, and we’re $200 in the hole, I want to locate clients. My first thought is race. So I start reaching out to race coordinators for 5ks 10ks marathons etc. Cold email or message stating who I am and what I want to offer. I send out maybe 5 or so emails per day for about a week. Mostly silence. But a couple organizations respond but they want me to donate my services in exchange for promotion package. And they dont want the Instant Pix offer they want traditional photo services. Dammit. Okay. So, no money here. Still in a $200 hole. And they don’t even want the product I’m offering – But I do gain visibility and get my name out there. And if they organize other events… then, maybe something comes from it down the line. But still no interest in the thing I just spent money I don’t have on. Crap. Next step is to expand my outreach and find a group or event that DOES want that service. Although, all work is good work at this stage.

Here’s what I can tell you. People don’t value the service they value what the service brings to them. Over the last 4 years of shooting at almost every turn clients are attempting to drive down and lesson the price of the product I want to provide. I’m constantly asked to shoot for free – which recognizes my skill but doesn’t value it monetarily. There’s no consideration for the $2500 camera body, the $2300 lens, the $90 memory card, the $70 battery, the $1500 computer, the $100+ a year editing program subscription, the $100 camera backpack the gas both ways and the TIME I spent learning how to use those things at a Pro level. The $8,000 or so dollars represented here covers the most basic level of photography. Can you do it for cheaper? Absolutely. Will your product suffer? Most likely.

Keeping costs low while recognizing that on a very real level spending more means you can provide more. But it doesn’t always translate to sales. Its mind bending. Spending on marketing, whether thats time on free platforms or paying someone to advertise for you, costs money. The time it takes to research products, the time it takes to reach out to potential clients, the time it takes to craft your image, the time it takes to participate in self promotion like with free press, the time it takes to learn how to be proficient with new gear… all costs something. And if you’re like me, a person trying to pivot from jobs I’m not passionate about to creating art I am passionate about, then you’re struggling. Struggling to find the dollars to advance your business. Struggling to balance life, work and fun with building your brand. This is free time right now, yah know, and am I happy to be doing this? %100. Im stoked they reached out to me. Im grateful for the eyes this puts on what I’m trying to do. It gives me a voice in a quiet, dark (mostly happy) space of trying to change my life in shadows. But would I rather be climbing or snowboarding right now? Spending time with my loved ones? Absolutely. The sacrifice isn’t just dollars its time. And as they say, time is money.

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?

Hi, I’m a 37 year old aspiring Professional Photographer. I mean human tripod. Wait, I mean entrepreneur. Wait, I mean marketing specialist. Wait, I mean accountant. Wait, I mean tech nerd. Wait, okay, hold on. What I really mean is a traditional-life anarchist. No thats not it, let me try again.

Hi! My name is Kyle Coleman and I am an artist. Or at least I’d like to think so. And my brush is a camera. My canvas the digital and printable spaces of your heart and mind, My inspiration, imagination. A poet of pictures. A prince of portraits. A champion of composition! Good lord. no.

Okay, for real this time.

I am a person who hopes to find financial freedom via my passions – and I want to do it my way. I want to capture the essence and vulnerability of a person, the stunning landscapes of the world and the extreme vibrance that is life. In a sentence? I want to be someone who captures the beauty of this world.

Eleven years ago I moved from Columbia, Maryland -> Breckenridge, Colorado. I came here to teach snowboarding and to realize my potential as a snowboarder. I didn’t want to be another person who lived in one place my whole life and I loved snowboarding and coaching sports. Put all these elements together and boom, Colorado. I spent the better part of 6 years in mountain paradise. While I was there I grew immensely as a person, a coach and a snowboarder. But something was wrong. I looked around at the locals and I looked at the jobs everyone did and I thought, man, I don’t want to be like them. So what do I want?

At the time Dew Tour was a huge event at Breck. I had grown up watching X-Games explode onto the scene in the 90’s. And Id become obsessed with snowboarding. My idols would be right there in front of me. Doing their thing. I quite literally got to meet my hero’s. My mind was just exploding. I knew I couldn’t get to their level, Id arrived too late in my years for Comp Park Riding but I could film it? Shoot it? I had access but I didn’t have a camera. And this part of the story doesn’t end with me having realized the dream of shooting/filming pro riding. I had vision but I didn’t have access. I was making under $18/hr and all of my money went to employee housing and other totally responsible things like food and beer. Fire with no fuel.

I moved from Breck to Denver to pursue commercial cannabis. It was an industry on the rise and id spent the latter part of my Breck years learning the tricks of the trade. Okay, there was also a girl down there. And so I moved from my personal paradise, my place of growth and the place of the most inspiring experiences of my life to pursue something else. Financial stability, mountain life permanence and a potential life partner. Fast forward about a year into my Denver experiment and the relationship failed, I was broke again and I was no closer to my life goals. From what I could tell cannabis wasn’t going to be the thing that gave me financial freedom. The money doesn’t trickle down, go figure. So I start revisiting the photography ideas.

Where did the photography passion come from? Glad you asked.

I grew up surrounded by art. My mom was a painter, a sculpture and a draw-er. All for fun of course but art was all over the walls, she sent me to art camp every summer (someone from the back of the room yells NERD) and I was encourage to see the world in a certain way. To see beauty everywhere and in every thing. My sister was an actress (and still is). The arts were all around me. Here’s where the photography thing comes into frame (see what I did there?).

Every time we went to visit family they had these picture frames on the wall. The ones that were tacky gold and silver from the 80s that hold, like, 15 small photos at a time. And there were atleast 10 of em at every family members house. So over 100 images everywhere. Family vacations, school photos, weddings. Everywhere. Not to mention the boxes upon boxes of photo albums. There were seemingly endless photos. I have core memories of going through those albums and of course being in those photos. So there’s this familial connection and nostalgia and this sense of belonging that came over my young mind.

Fast forward to high school and needing to take an art class to graduate. Im a junior or senior and its time to knock this off the requirements list. I am not an artist. I can’t paint, draw, sketch anything. Like, real bad at it. So I chose a photography class. Opp. I needed an art pre-req to get into the class. So instead of taking the art class at my high school I took it the community college down the street. They were night classes and while my skill improved I still didn’t care about creating art in that medium. I do the art class and I’m in the photography class at my hs. Im loving it. We’re doing dark room development, we’re doing cool assignments and im really enjoying it. Until.

Until some of the football players in my class broke something and blamed it on me. I got expelled from the class. The teacher wanted to hear none of it (lacrosse coach). I was destroyed. Im not a destroyer of things. Thats not me.

So, Im 16 and I’ve gone too and paid for an art class at the community college. I passed. I get enrolled into the class I wanted and Im having a great time. All just to get kicked out because of some assholes who didn’t want to own up to their mistake and blamed me. Damn, dude. Flames doused.

Where does all this lead?

It leads to me buying a shitty Sony A6300 crop sensored camera, used, off of Facebook marketplace for $700. It came with a camera 2 lenses a battery and a little baby tripod. And we’re off. Now what?

What was my goal?

I needed a job that I was passionate about, that gave me access to the great outdoors and something that paid well. But most importantly one where I was in charge of my own schedule. So I could do cool shit outside when the weather was right. Bonus points if I don’t have to work over the winters. Weddings. The answer I came up with was weddings. Im going to be a wedding photographer. Ownership of time, income and schedule. It pays well and it allows me to use my (at the time) 16 years of hospitality experience. Okay, so im currently growing cannabis for a large grow (12,000 plant facility). And I want to be a wedding photographer. How the fuck am I going to accomplish that? It eventually consumes my consciousness. This is what im going to do. Fuck the job I left the mountains for. Fuck the 100 plants I was growing in my basement. Fuck all that. That thing id just spent the last 5 years pursuing. Fuck it. Its not going to pay me? There’s a very narrow path to adult dollars? And weed never takes a day off? Hell no. I applied to 17 jobs across the nation. Only 2 gave me offers. And one of em was for $1 more dollar an hour and id have to move to Maine? Im out, y’all.

I got back into restaurants and started making big time money (to me). I now had the dollars to fuel my passion pursuit of the life id dreamt up for myself. One that leads me to financial freedom. One that allows me to take life by the fuckin horns!!! Or yah know, maybe it won’t. lol.

Where am I today?

Four years have passed since I bought that first camera. Four years have passed as I’ve worked in the background towards this idea that came to me. Am I where I want to be? No, I’m not. But I’m much closer to the life I want than I was in Maryland, than I was at Breck coaching snowboarding, than I was in the garden. Its weird to think, if my goal is mountain living and my supreme personal happiness comes from snowboarding and being amongst the giants (mountains) how the fuck did leaving the mountains bring me closer to my goals. What a mind fuck. Thats what that is. But it’s true. I am closer.

I need/ed to build a resume and the skills that are required to shoot in the wedding space. What’s that look like? Im a person who dissects a problem and builds up a solution. So I worked backwards from what I want my end goal to be and started building the shooting background to get to there.

Along the way I’ve shot fashion shows on a runway. I’ve shot for several fashion magazines. Ive traveled to shoot (for free) in other states, hell i’ve paid to work with specific models. Ive shot races and graduations and family portraits. I’v shot rock climbing. I’ve gone back to the mountains to shoot at Dew Tour (not for Dew Tour). Ive mastered editing. I’ve created a style. I’ve shot so much portraiture. I’ve shot and shot. I think I’m close to give or take 500,000 frames shot.

Last summer I applied to shoot for a wedding photography company. And after a lengthy hiring process I got the job. I was elated. I did it! I had finally reached the bottom rung of the wedding world. It took 3 years of work to get there. The pay is/was trash and I had to learn how to shoot their way. I had to learn how to shoot on Canon – Im a Sony shooter. But hell! I was ready! So I spent last summer 2nd (backup) shooting weddings.

Shout out to my wedding photography mentor Justin and my photography mentor Eli. You all never gate kept information and you always answered every question I ever had. Never short changed me, ever. My utmost gratitude goes to those two.

What’s next?

World domination!! Just kidding. I need to turn this into my full-time gig. My next steps are… continue to shoot for this wedding company. Secure employment with a real estate company and find something to shoot over the winter months.

The need to turn this into my full time job, is the main focus. Sever the connection to the real world and pursue independence. While realizing I’m going to have to work for other people before I can work for myself.

I’m building website to showcase my works and offer services. The process is painfully slow. What do I know about building a website? What do I know about marketing? Having to learn every aspect of the growth and development of my business is hard. It’s hard, y’all. It is time, it is money, it is dedication, it is persistence and maybe most importantly it is belief. Belief in myself. That I can do this. That I shoot at a level that people will want to pay for. And that I can create the life I’ve always wanted.

What am I most proud of?

That I’m trying. That I have the audacity to dream. That I am not taking the traditional path in life. I’m proud to call myself an artist. Im proud of the reputation I’m building. I’m proud to bring my vision to life. I’m proud of my authenticity.

What do I need?

I need some people to take a chance on me. To believe in me. To take the time to get to know me. Because I am worthy of the recognition. Im not cheating the game. Im going about it the right way. And I truly truly want to be great.

What do you need to know about me as a shooter?

I care. Thats what I I want people to know. I care about what I’m doing. I care about what I’m shooting. I care about the people. I love helping people feel beautiful, feel confident, feel powerful. And I love love. I want to know your story. I want to know why you chose that dress or that pose or this venue. And I want people to know that I’m going to deliver. I’m going to deliver for you because I want to but also because delivering for you is also showing up for me. Showing up for my dreams. Showing up for my future.

Im driven. Im dedicated and most importantly Im passionate. I love what I do. As an artist I have all the skills that make up great photographers. I have instinct which can’t be taught. I have the eye for composition. I read people extremely well. I can feel the chemistry between the subjects and myself. I have vision. And as I said. I want to great. I don’t want to be average. I don’t want to be just another shooter. I want to be THE shooter. Someone clients rave about. Someone who delivers. Someone you can trust with your biggest moments. I want be, Someone.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I touched on this a bit in the last section. But ill come at this a little differently here. Ill pretend the question is “what is your “why”?”

My goal is to live authentically. My mission is financial stability and building a business I can be proud of. When I was working in cannabis I started asking myself “what is it I want? how do I want to live? What can I do (for work) that will take me there?”

What is it I want?

I boiled it down to. I want ownership of my time, income and schedule. While, hopefully, doing something that inspires me and gets me outside. Time, income, schedule. Hm. I arrived at the idea that photography could get me there and furthermore I concluded that it was wedding photography that would satisfy my criteria. So, I embarked upon that journey. Beautiful places, people enjoying one of the most important days of their lives and the pressure to perform in ever changing environments. It felt like a good energy kind of work environment. Add in the variety, the income and the schedule and I’m sold.

What would I rather be doing if money didn’t matter?

If I were being honest about what is it I want to do for a living, I would say “I want to guide excursions around the world.” The short version is, these spaces are hard to get into and they don’t pay very well. Rock and Snow guide courses are around 40k and the yearly average income is about the same. 40k right out the gate is a hefty price tag and theres really not a whole lot one can do in this line of work – a very narrow lane, if you will, with low paying jobs. Spend 40k to make 40k? No, thanks. The truth is, if I went this path, all my personal and financial goals would never come to fruition. So this wasn’t the answer. Which is sad, right? I don’t get to do the thing I’m MOST passionate about. So what should I do, I wondered.

Who inspires me? What inspires me?

Jimmy Chin. If you’re unfamiliar with Jimmys’ work… look no further than your favorite Red Bull movie. Such as Alex Honnolds “Free Solo” and “Meru: Believe in the Impossible”. These are some of the most iconic adventure films to date and the man behind (and often in front of) the camera is Jimmy Chin. World class adventure photographer and cinematographer. Let us not forget he and his wife are a team in this. She does a lot of the editing. There is no-one bigger in this space. He’s a legend. Not only is he a man of magic behind the camera he’s also one of the premier climbers and skiers on the planet. If I were living my best life, these are the spaces you’d find me in. I will silently work towards these spaces because in my heart of hearts Im an outdoor adventurer and thrill seeking kind of guy. If I could get into the adventure docu space that would make me the most fulfilled.

When you live in spaces that inspire you and you can tag your movie titles with things like “Believe in the Impossible”, you’re truly alive. Im most happy when I have something to believe in, to work towards and to strive for. Ill continue to push towards being just like Jimmy. While simultaneously working to make sure I have the financial stability to set myself up for the latter half of my life. These two spaces, weddings and adventure film/photo, are the two things that will give me the best chance to live life in a way that best aligns with who I am and what I want. If in my journey I can make incredible breathtaking adventure films and also shoot weddings for stability, ill be a happy guy.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Where are we (am i) now in my journey?

Im on the brink. Im on the brink of realizing a goal I set before myself four years ago. Ownership of my time, my income and my schedule. I’m on the brink of this being my full time gig. My website is almost complete. Im about to get the experience of being the primary shooter for weddings this summer – which is the last piece of training I need to feel ready to go out on my own. I am maybe 10-15k or so away from having all the equipment I need to do almost every job I could be hired for -specifically weddings, events and real estate. Im nearly ready to start tackling video and video editing. Im close. Im closer than I’ve ever been and it feels like in a year from now Ill be running a completely independent photography business. Ive spent the last 4 years building towards these goals. I haven’t taken any short cuts and maybe more importantly I didn’t rush the process. I am eager to get to where Im going but I am also just one person. So it’ll take time.

Unique or major hurdles along the way?

One of the biggest hurdles in building my brand is when you work for a lot of these photography companies you don’t own the rights to the photos. So marketing as a wedding photographer has been difficult. If authenticity is one of my major foundational goals or principles, using stock wedding images on my website falls short. Ive taken 10s of thousands of wedding photos but I can’t use a single one of them. So the catch 22 is, I get experience, I get mentorship, im given equipment to use but I don’t get to use the images. So how to I demonstrate my wedding photography skills if I can’t show/prove I’ve shot weddings?

There are several ways to navigate these issues. One, work for a company that DOES let you keep your images – it always comes with the caveat of having to do your own editing. They have a 10 day turn around and in that time you have to go through say 3-5,000 images, cull (reduce) the shoot to 3-500 images and then edit those images. Often times the editing is fairly minimal. However, if I plan to use those images to represent my ability I’m going to edit them to perfection. All while trying to work at my normal jobs (I have 3 of them – restaurants/bars) and have a life. Should I do this? Probably.

I could shoot weddings at a discount rate or shoot weddings for my friends. Not a bad plan but still, people would need to know I available for that sort of thing and ill be honest it feels super gross pandering for business on my personal accounts. Like “ooo look at me, give me money.” I understand thats how a lot of people do things, its just not for me. I don’t want to beg and I don’t want to undervalue my ability by offering discounts. Could the hinder my progress? Definitely. Will I feel 10x better when Im successful knowing it was self made?10,000%

It really has hindered the advertising part of developing my business.

So much of the beginning of the photo journey is shooting for free, is not having rights to shots you took, is gatekeeping (not my specific mentors but absolutely in the wedding game), is a lack of money and learning so many adjacent things that have very little to do with shooting. Every business endeavor will have its challenges so Im not boo-hoo’ing about it but these things have prevented growth along the way.

Im sad that in the photos I’ve shared here not but one of them is a wedding photo and its not very good.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.MyFotoPro.com
• Instagram: @_coloradocamera @the_powdrhound
• Other: Website is coming. it’ll be under the Url www.MyFotoPro.com Email for now [email protected]