We recently connected with Rebekah Sampson and have shared our conversation below.
Rebekah, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
My mission is to document relationships. I think they are the most valuable thing a person has and something every individual craves. I grew up feeling quite isolated and was fascinated by close connections people had with each other. I bought my first film cameras when I was 13 and loved photographing people candidly and printing photos for them. The best compliment I got was “you captured who we really are”. Many people have a critical view of their own self image and I love trying to show them what their loved ones see in them.
Rebekah, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’ve always loved kids and began babysitting as soon as I was able to, around 11. I started photographing their little personalities and giving prints to their moms. I distinctly remember how proud I felt when a mom told me “how did you get a photo of the real her?” I soon became obsessed with taking photos and saved up and bought my first film camera off of Ebay when I was 12.
When I was 18 a neighbor offered to take me with her to Chicago to assist on, of all things, an industrial vacuum shoot with a big photographer. After the session, the photographer told me she was a wedding photographer based in California and invited me to come assist a wedding with her. The rest, as they say, is history. I fell in love with the wonderful world of weddings and haven’t looked back. Almost 20 years later, and I still find a wedding day to be the most incredible honor to document. A person’s most cherished relationships on planet earth all in one area, celebrating the gift of love and life. I’ve done extensive work on the art of documentary photography and learning to anticipate and document a true relationship.
I love showing a photo to someone and having them see themselves in a new light. The way their parent sees them, the way their partner sees them, the way their kid sees them. It’s a very special thing to me. I want everyone who works with me to feel seen, cherished, beautiful. I make prints of every session I do because of my beginning. Because holding a photo is different than seeing it on a screen.
Any fun sales or marketing stories?
Being an artist is quite the journey. It involves so much inner-work. I remember when I was 15, my mom took me to meet up with a local photographers group. They were all very kind and mostly made up of retired professionals. I told them “I just want to take photos and I don’t even care if I get paid”. They laughed at me. I was so embarrassed. Art and money has so many layers and mostly it comes down to your own self-worth and value. And, being an artist and loving what you do is not all it takes to own a business. The best advice I ever got was to go to school for business, not photography. Because learning to grow and manage a business takes work.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
I grew up in an environment that certainly prioritized me being a housewife, not a business owner. I remember when I got married and we began our family, I would wake up at 4:00, sometimes 3:00am to get editing done. I would make sure everything in our home was in order so that me working didn’t affect what people expected of me. There are so many layers and years of self-work that got me to where I am today.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://rebekahsampson.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rebekahsampsonphoto/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebekahsampsonphotography?mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Other: Threads: rebekahsampsonphoto
