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

Alright, Nick thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

When I think back on the journey of pursuing the idea of making a living from my creative outlet of photography, there were many risks – some calculated, others unnecessary, and more that proved essential to take the next step in the difficult industry. With that said, the initial risk, which was also easily the biggest gamble, was leaving my job of nearly twelve years at the prospect of being hired to shoot commercially for several brands. In hindsight, I probably did not have enough experience and was tremendously under-qualified to shoot anything professionally, and should have had a much more stable plan than “one or two gigs” that seemed too good to be true. These jobs actually turned out to be great, however, and although not lasting as long as I’d hope for, were a definite foot in the door, helping me build a bigger and more diverse portfolio, establish myself as a professional presence, and pave the way to other additional freelance and contract jobs in various genres of photography. Flash forward seven years later, and I find myself wondering what other risks I can take and the rewarding outcomes that may follow them.

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 was born in Portland, Oregon, and have called Vancouver, WA home for the last seven years. A love for hiking and traveling in our beautiful Pacific Northwest corner of the world sparked a love for photography. I began taking photos of pretty places and views from hikes and adventures with my girlfriend (now wife!) and that eventually developed into a hobby passion of landscape photography. Flash forward some years and I loved nothing more than playing with cameras whenever I could, learning about different genres of photography, and binging tutorial videos on shooting, editing, and so forth. As much as I loved nature/landscape photography, at the time it was not enough to pay bills. I started building a portfolio of a variety of subject matter, and networking as much as possible, eventually landing a job as an in-house photographer for a company photographing people and dogs, and later with various agencies shooting commercially for brands, products, food/restaurants, and lifestyle content. By my fifth year freelancing, I had double digit weddings under my belt, over 700 commercial shoots completed, countless private portrait sessions, and began to understand how to monetize my initial love – landscapes and nature/travel – by means of large scale image licensing, prints, and digital downloads. While I still to this day and am not clearly defined by one niche when it comes what I am shooting for monetary value, I strive to bring my own style to any position, and execute images as best I can with a vision of my own. I still love nothing more than traveling or hiking and capturing photos, but am more than happy being behind a camera in any situation, whether that means a corporate event, a family portrait session, or standing by a mountain lake at sunrise.

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

Hands down the most rewarding aspect of photography for me is sharing the images and the feedback. Even if there is negative feedback (which definitely happens at times regardless of what you are shooting), the positives massively outweigh everything else. Whether that is sharing a photo of a beautiful sunrise or waterfall on social media and having people truly appreciate it (especially those that may never get the opportunity to see these places for themselves), or the sheer joy from a client after they see their photos of their family/children the first time. Getting out and shooting is always wonderful, and the editing process is therapeutic to me, but the best joy is the finished product being delivered to the viewer.

How did you build your audience on social media?

My audience on social media is not, relatively speaking, very large across the board, but it is still wild to look at analytics and see a reach of nearly a million people a month (mostly from Facebook). While instagram has definitely slowed down for me (and many other artists), it is still possible to grow and reach the right people on any platform. I did this over years organically. I’d like to think it was quite simple – post relevant content that you feel good about, and frequently. This might mean once a day, or maybe once a week (everyone is different and has different goals), but as long as you are consistent with your posting schedule (which is quite easy with automated systems like Meta business suite), your audience can know what to expect and will grow over time. Secondly, engage. Respond to comments and messages. Comment and chat with other people in the community. Build sincere relationships. Accept feedback, offer support, and be as genuine as possible. Those, in my opinion, are the two main key ingredients to organically building a presence on social media. Surely there are other elements, like hashtags, keeping up with changing trends (i.e. reels, stories, layouts, etc.), and not deviating too far from your brand, but as long as you are consistent, proud of your work, and engage, you should be good to go. Just don’t post and ghost in the beginning :-)

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.NicholasStevenPhotography.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/nicholas_steven_
• Facebook: Facebook.com/NicholasStevenPhoto

Image Credits
Nick Wiltgen