Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Robin Dayley. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Robin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career.

I have friends and family working as teachers and school administration, and I know there are deficiencies in funding and teacher pay. But I think there are also some fundamental issues with curriculum and the path on which we steer students. I grew up in a rural area and the school system there really only pushed two options: college for those who got good grades and vocational school for those who did not. And there was a stigma if you were one of the vocational students, you didn’t want to be one of the “dumb” kids. Now with 25 years of hindsight, I realize how wrong this was.

First, pushing 18 year old kids to choose a career before they’ve even had a chance to experience life is madness. Encouraging them to take on life-altering amounts of debt for an educational path they might not be sure about is setting them up for failure. When I graduated high school I wanted to make movies – specifically I wanted to be a cinematographer. I went to film school. Like I said, I was from a small town. I had never met a cinematographer. I had a vague idea what they did but knew nothing about the industry or what education a cinematographer might have. My four year college experience was beneficial to me in other ways, but it definitely wasn’t the most direct path to the career I wanted at that time. Years later, after not becoming a cinematographer, I had the chance to really talk to one. I asked him what he would have recommended for me to do instead of a 4 year film school. He told me I should have become an electrician and studied photography, because most cinematographers start out on a crew of best boys and gaffers which handle the lighting and grid work on set. An ELECTRICIAN! So, vocational school? My mind was blown and I couldn’t help but feel that I really lost out on my dream because I just didn’t know how to get there.

I don’t have children but I do have two nieces who are currently in high school. I worry about them both and hope I can be there with better advice than I got. I would love for them to take a gap year or two, to find an entry level job in an industry they are interested in to see if they really do love it enough to pursue that education. I want them to interview someone who is working in the industry and ask them their advice on an educational path. I want them to intern and shadow real professionals and find a mentor who will help guide them on the most efficient path to success. And I want our education system to adopt these types of requirements for graduation. Our generation has to change the processes that didn’t work for us.

Finally, it is essential that we add life skills curriculum to our education system. Students should be learning how to manage money, navigate healthcare, and make nutritional decisions. These gaps in knowledge in our younger years can be devastating to our futures. Financial and medical issues contribute to stress and mental health issues down the road. We need to give our young people the tools to navigate life issues before the damage is already done.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’ve been a portrait and wedding photographer for almost 2o years. I became interested in photography during high school when I was on the yearbook committee. I was a film major and a photography minor in college and ended up working at a portrait studio pretty soon after graduation. Weddings soon followed and I was hooked. I loved the adrenaline!

During my studio career, I was trained in classic portraiture which involves very detailed posing of your subjects. Photography has evolved over the past 20 years and now clients tend to like portraits that look a little more natural and candid. But everyone still wants to look their best in photos, so having a balance of both styles helps me to cater to even the most self-conscious of clients.

Speaking of the most self-conscious of client – hello, that’s me! I’m a plus-size lady and haven’t always been comfortable with that. I have always felt much more confident behind the camera than in front of it, and because of this I have always had a unique understanding of my body-conscious clients and how they want to be photographed. And as a creative business, I need to keep my own headshots fresh so over the years I’ve hired a lot of other photographers to take my pictures. Time and time again, I’ve been really disappointed with the results. If I weren’t a photographer I would’ve just decided that I wasn’t photogenic, but I know better. I can see right away that these photographers just don’t understand how to photograph a plus size woman. Out of this realization, I’ve recently decided to launch a new brand called CurvyPhotographer, which will be dedicated to making plus-size women feel amazing in their photos. After 20 years of portrait photography, this is the most excited I’ve been about anything in a long time. I’m looking forward to shining a spotlight on plus-size beauty and making my clients see that they are gorgeous at any size.

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I’ve had ups and downs over the last 20 years of business. Photography alone hasn’t always paid the bills so I’ve had a variety of part time jobs to fill in gaps when needed. I ended up picking up bookkeeping skills which have been my go-to for a part time job off and on. I don’t love it, but it provides some degree of stability during stressful times.

Unrelated, I don’t offer newborn photography as part of my business. Years ago I got really excited about those adorable sleepy newborn photos and I wanted to start doing them. I spent a lot of money on props and backdrops and I booked a few sessions. As it turns out, I wasn’t great at it. The sessions were long, the rooms needed to be kept warm for the babies which made me sweaty, the babies pooped on all my props, and after all that my photos were just okay. This made sense, I had never had a baby and always felt a little awkward around them anyway. So I decided this wasn’t the niche for me and I would refer them out to other photographers who were great at it.

During the pandemic, I was once again forced to return to a bookkeeping job to make ends meet. I soon became comfortable with the regular paycheck but struggled with the desire to just get back to my photography business which I was then neglecting. A friend of mine asked me why I didn’t just hustle and take any photography job I could get so that I didn’t have to work the office job. She said, “I know you say you don’t do newborns, but wouldn’t you rather take a newborn session than have to work the office job?” My answer was this: If I have a bad day at my office job, I get in my car and drive home and maybe I vent to my boyfriend and then I move on. If a customer at my office job is angry, (assuming I’ve done my job the best I can), I can shake that off. I don’t own that business. That customer’s angry Yelp review doesn’t do me any personal damage. But if I take a newborn gig and I do a bad job, THAT client’s bad Yelp review does affect me. It affects my business and my psyche. I internalize that. I internalize every single feedback email I receive from my clients. Like most creatives, I put my work out there, and then wait on pins and needles for the feedback. Thankfully my feedback is almost always positive, but negative feedback in any form can immediately cause anxiety. Because negative feedback on something as subjective as photography doesn’t just call into question my business skills, but also my talent. This is a big part of why imposter syndrome exists. You can have a huge body of successful work and happy clients, but one bad experience can send a creative spiraling. We are tied to our work in that way and it makes the choice to pursue a creative business a brave one – a choice that opens us up to criticism we wouldn’t necessarily be subject too in other industries.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

When I was trying to build my business here in San Diego, I wasted a lot of money on things I thought I needed that ended up not really helping me very much. I took a bogus course on how to build a professional photography business. I went to WPPI (Wedding & Portrait Photographers International), which wasn’t a total waste but I didn’t really have a focus when I went so I wasn’t really getting as much out of it as I could have. In the end, what ended up helping me the most was networking and finding groups of creatives who were willing to collaborate and share their knowledge. I belong to an amazing Facebook group of women photographers which has helped me make some friends in the industry. These ladies have been instrumental in helping me learn new skills, keep up on the latest technology, and just to have resources for hiring second shooters or finding someone for a last minute emergency. When you have these kinds of networks, the referrals come naturally, the knowledge is less difficult to seek out, and the camaraderie is an asset to your mental health.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dayleyphotography.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dayleyphoto/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DayleyPhoto
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-dayley-402b0637/
• Other: New brand launching soon! IG: @CurvyPhotographer WEB: www.curvyphotographer.com

Image Credits
My headshot is from www.stacieshoots.com IG: @stacieshoots