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

Mekahaliah, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

Ever since I was 15, I started working regular 9-5 jobs while balancing school as well. I honestly was not very happy with my jobs even after graduating high school and going onto college. Even in college, I was lost and felt that I would be stuck working the same job and graduating in a major I really had no use or desire for. I decided to drop out of school and even then I was still working jobs that did not fulfill me. I was still very undecided as to what I wanted to do.

I’ve had a passion for photography I would say since middle school. It started out small with landscape and pet photography and even then it was nothing professional. Just your typical iPhone photos. It had never even crossed my mind to pursue photography as a career until 2019. I saw a photograph by photographer David Lachapelle, an extremely talented photographer back in 2019, I just remember seeing how vibrant and alive the photo was and it lowkey inspired me and made me think about photography more as an art. I thought to myself wow I could do that. I’ve always had a certain love for photography and I didn’t even consider maybe that’s what I should do. So, when the pandemic first hit, I ended up moving back home from LA to Houston and I this was around the time everything started to shut down. I needed a way to make an income so I just threw myself right into it. I had my little ten year old camera, my computer and I just started marketing myself. At first I was nervous because honestly I was like I have no idea what the heck I am doing you know. I went to what they call YouTube University lol. And to this day I am still learning my craft. I ended up getting much better at it. I had friends, even clients who have been coming back to me since day one believe in me and that’s what really pushed me. I ended up loving being a photographer and I’ve never loved working so much until now. I look back and I’m just like why did I not start this sooner. You know it’s not easy work, there’s a lot that goes into being a photographer but it’s fun and being happy about what you do is all that matters.

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?

My name is Mekahaliah Raindance Brown and I started Raindance Photography back in 2019. I am an editorial photographer and I provide different photography services such as; fashion, beauty, portraits, graduation, and much more. What sets me aside is that I have range. I can go from doing a shoot of someone who’s going to be on the front page of a magazine to doing a child’s birthday party. I’ve had clients for all types of different shoots the past three years. Even though my main niche is editorial photography, I do it all. I believe that photographs are timeless and are meant to be special. I look at photos taken on an old polaroid from my childhood that I adore dearly because those are memories. And that’s what I love about this craft, capturing memories.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

So when I started this business I was flat out broke. I had just moved back home from LA which cost an arm and a leg and no one was really hiring because everything had shut down. So when I threw myself into this I had nothing. So how did I fund my business? Answer is my mother. Shout out to my mom being an OG supporter. She had given me her camera and lighting equipment she used for YouTube videos that she no longer needed. And even though it was not professional photography equipment it got the job done. I would originally go to peoples houses and set up the backdrops there and shoot. This was when people were still wary of going out and I didn’t have money for renting studios at the time so I was ballin on a budget. I eventually saved up enough money to buy new lighting and lenses. I did not even get a new camera until a few months ago because the one my mom gave me was absolutely amazing and I still use it sometimes to this day for shoots. I was even upgraded with even better lighting beginning of this year from a brand deal with a photography lighting equipment company. So it all just came together with the support of my mom and other family members and if I didn’t even have that support, I feel like I would still be a photographer but I would not be as advanced in my photography as I am today.

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

So I have had the same Instagram page since forever. I would post travel photos and some creative edits I would do with pictures I took of animals. So that kind of started making my page gain some attention. I rely solely on Instagram for marketing. So when I started taking photos of people, I would run ads. Ads really helped build my following as well as getting featured on publishers Instagram pages, people sharing my work and studios reposting pictures I took at their studio. I’ve even had people make artwork from pictures I took and tagged me in it. Collaborations are also a big thing. Not everything is about making money. I’ve collaborated with so many amazing creatives and some of the work I have done with them just blew up. I’ve even trended on tumblr and I never even thought that was possible. So there are several different ways you can build your social media presence. Even though not all my followers even like or share my work, if you have that issue don’t let that deter you from sharing your work. People see you even if they are lurking in the background.

Contact Info:

• Website: Raindancephotography.com
• Instagram: Rain.dance
• Facebook: Raindance Photography

Image Credits
Zyah Randle, Clemence Ishimwe, Zhariah Chillis, Roderick Tayler, John Pullings, Michael Rebner, Beza Weet, Stacy Iwunze, Milton Moore, Brenna Haffey, Jewel Galour, Mendel McCoy

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