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

Hi Marissa, thanks for joining us today. Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?

Growing up, my parents were always working. My mom sometimes didn’t get off work until after I was in bed. I’m not complaining – it definitely instilled a work ethic in me that has been influential to my success in my own business. They always told me I could do anything I wanted to do. Watching both of my parents run their own businesses taught me so much.

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?

I have my Bachelor’s Degree in Hospitality Tourism Management. After graduating college in 2017, I worked as a social media and marketing director for three years. In 2019, I decided I wanted to take better photos for my content and bought a kit lens – nothing fancy. I played around with it and decided to do a Grease themed shoot at the Elkhart 4-H Fair. It went viral on Facebook with over 12k shares and I had so many people asking why I wasn’t doing this part time. A week later, I invested in a better camera and did just that.

While still finding my footing, my grandpa unexpectedly passed away. When gathering photos for his funeral, I realized I didn’t have many photos together and our most recent was about 10 years prior. This made me want to pursue photography wholeheartedly and made me realize I wanted to capture moments that people could hold onto and look back at.

In 2020 amongst the pandemic, I went full time. I was working at my family owned business at the time and running the place. It was difficult leaving a place where I was comfortable and knew I would be set for life, but I wanted to find success on my own. I read a quote that said “like wildflowers, you must allow yourself to grow in all the places people thought you never would.” A few days later, I got that wildflower tattooed on me as a reminder, and put in my two weeks.

I am now a full-time wedding and elopement photographer, specializing in all things couples!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Within three years of starting my account, I reached over 10k followers. I was in social media/marketing prior to photography so that knowledge helped me expand my reach. My best advice is connecting and networking with others, following those in your target market, posting consistently and utilizing the use of hashtags and geotags.

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

When I started photography, I thought every single photo I took had to be “picture perfect” AKA perfectly posed, in focus, beautiful composition, etc. I’ve since realized photography is an art, and all art is subjective. My favorite photos are candid shots, motion blur, flash photos, and not perfectly posed. I had to unlearn what I thought I knew!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.marissaraephotography.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marissaraephotography/