We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Reede Fisher a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Reede, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So, what do you think about family businesses? Would you want your children or other family members to one day join your business?
I grew up in a family of business owners, and that’s what gave me the courage to pursue my own path and establish a business of my own. Watching my family members navigate their own entrepreneurship journeys (and succeeding), as well as working alongside my father in *several* of his businesses gave me the skills and tools I needed to jump in headfirst & fearlessly into my photography career.
While the businesses were all vastly different (ranging from contracting, storefronts, restaurants, law firms), the bottom line is the same – having an incredible support system will really help you achieve anything you set your mind to.
Reede, 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 got into the photography industry because I had grown up rifling through all of my old family photo albums in my free time. I would literally dig out all of the boxes I could find and ask about the stories behind each image. From there, I would steal my parent’s old cameras and take photos of anything and everything up until I was gifted my own camera (which didn’t take too long for my parents to decide to give me, ha!)
I know it’s so cliche, but I really can’t remember a time when I wasn’t obsessed with taking photos – and I had the opportunity of being on the Yearbook staff all four years of high school (editor for three!). I fell in love with being behind the scenes for everything (some of my favorite high school memories were being on the sidelines at football games while some of my my best friends were on the team).
I shot a few friends’ senior photos and one couples session before college, where I ended up joining the school media team at Oregon State. This is where it gets fun, and maybe the thing I’m most proud of – I only went to college for one year, and in that time – I took one, maybe two photography classes and became Delta Chi’s photographer and photographed my first two weddings. Once I realized that I didn’t need a degree to pursue this passion of mine, I packed up my dorm room and left before the last round of finals for the year were even over – and haven’t looked back since!
I really take pride in being able to capture the unseen moments, the artistic candids and most of all, ALLLL of the love that just exudes from everybody and everything I’ve had the pleasure of photographing. It also really helps that I end up becoming really good friends with some of my clients along the way, some of which I still stay in touch with regularly.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I am still working on unlearning the imposter syndrome. As a fellow creative and small business owner, it is almost damn near impossible not to look at others in the same industry and wonder why they have more followers/bookings/photos/whatever than you. It’s hard to wonder why you’re not on the same level as them success-wise when you personally feel like the skill and artistic level is comparable.
I try to take the time to remind myself, that not only does everyone grow at their own pace, everybody has their own way of doing things and their ideal client may not be the same ideal client as mine.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of being an artist or creative is having the creative freedom to do whatever I want with my images and direction, and then hearing that my couples love my work when it’s all said and done.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://reedefisher.com
- Instagram: @reedefisher
Image Credits
All photo credits go to me: Reede Fisher Photography