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

Patrick, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today The first dollar you earn in a new endeavor is always special. We’d love to hear about how you got your first client that wasn’t a friend or family.

It’s all about who you know. Back in 2004 I had just finished college and moved to Atlanta with about $500 in my bank account. I was eager to start working as a photographer but was finding it hard to get my foot in the door with potential clients because I lacked real world experience. When I finally got a phone call it wasn’t from any of the businesses I had reached out to or sent promos to, it was shop owner who happened to have been at a party, in a different city, with a classmate of mine from college. They had mentioned to my classmate that they needed a photographer in Atlanta as theirs had moved out of town. My name got dropped and a couple weeks later I was shooting an ad for them (for pennies, I hadn’t figured out how to negotiate rates yet). Anyhow, I did well enough on the first one that they hired me for a second ad, then a third, then my name got passed to some other business owners and they started hiring me as well. I did well with them and managed to keep expanding by word of mouth. Now, almost 20 years later it feels pretty wild that my career got off the ground because of a random conversation at a party that I didn’t even attend. If there’s a lesson there I suppose it’s be ready for opportunity; the opportunity that came my way wasn’t the one I was expecting and the job wasn’t exactly what I wanted to be doing but I took it and it got my foot in the door and allowed me to grow organically to a point where I could shape my career in a more intentional way.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a lifestyle and portrait photographer who creates playful, moving, and elegant images for aspirational brands, small businesses, big businesses, and artists.

I was an artsy (weird) kid, and from a young age I knew I wanted to pursue a career as an artist. For a while I thought I was going to be a painter but as it turns out I’m flat out terrible at painting. Fortunately for me I was given a camera as a teenager and fell in love with taking pictures.

I studied photography at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Afterwards I moved to Atlanta where I live with my amazing wife and my chatterbox of a son.

I work with a wide variety of clients on projects ranging from individuals looking for a new headshot, to ad campaigns for major pharmaceutical companies, to magazine stories about sex store owners. I bring the same curiosity and technical expertise to every shoot I take on. Sometimes it’s just me and a camera, sometimes I’m running a 20 person crew, but at the end of the day I always want to end up with images that exceed the client’s expectations.

One of the things I love about my work is the problem solving. I don’t do a lot of in-studio work so I almost always in a new location with different challenges, from how to make an overcast day in the fall look like a sunny summer afternoon to how to make a modest space look luxurious, to how to get two people who have never met look like they’ve had a lifelong friendship on camera. It’s never the same day twice.

In addition to assignment work I enjoy pursuing personal projects and creating what I’ve been told is “Fine Art”. My fancy art-photography is represented by Kai Lin Art here in Atlanta. You can check out my art at www.patrickheagneystudio.com.

When I’m not doing any of the above you can usually find me listening to my son explain something he saw on YouTube to me, playing banjo, or accumulating cats (most of whom don’t really seem to care for the banjo music).

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

From the start word of mouth has been the best and most effective way to get new clients. I advertise, I do social media, I do email blasts, I’m represented by a couple photographer marketing agencies, I still send direct mail pieces to potential clients, but nothing works as well as word of mouth. Not by a long shot. If a current client recommends you to a colleague you come with an endorsement from someone that potential new client can trust and that is priceless. It’s also one of the reasons you should treat every job like it’s your most important gig of the year, you never know when going above and beyond is going to make a client sing your praises in front of other people who can hire you.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

One time I had been commissioned by a magazine to photograph a Greek Easter celebration. It was going to be an all day shoot, covering everything from roasting a whole lamb over a pit to dancing and an egg hunt. It was being held in a large backyard of a local business owner, they’d dug a pit for roasting the meat and set up tents all around the swimming pool to accommodate the 200 or so guests. About 3 hours in I was looking through the camera, backing up to frame up a shot just right, and I took one step too far. Next thing I know I’m falling backwards into the pool in front of 200 people, including the art director and editor from the magazine, and my camera was coming with me. Now aside from the embarrassment this presented a real problem because my camera and lens were toast. Very soggy, completely useless, toast and I had the majority of the shoot ahead of me. My phone was fried from the water and the camera rental stores were closed. I had a backup camera but quickly discovered that the batteries for it were so old they would only hold a charge for a few minutes. So I had to keep shooting for a few minutes, running over to where another battery was charging, swap, shoot for a few minutes, and repeat. All while wearing some clothes the host of the party had lent me that were at best 5 sizes too large for me and consisted of workout shorts and a t-shirt that said Keep Calm and Drink Ouzo. It was tedious going and I wanted to die from embarrassment but I persisted and eventually got through the day. In the end the story ran for 8 pages and looked great, you would never know it almost didn’t happen. I persisted when I wanted to give up and I think overall it impressed the client, I worked with them for years after that.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.patrickheagney.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/patrickheagney
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickheagney/

Image Credits
all images ©Patrick Heagney Photography