We were lucky to catch up with Sarah Hall recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sarah , appreciate you joining us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

Earning a living as a full time creative is not something that just happens overnight or in the blink of an eye, and it is not for the faint of heart. The all nighters, weekends, and life moments given up socializing with your friends and family just to be succesful before you even get to the point where you can think about making enough money to be a full time creative is enough to turn anyone away or even make anyone give up before becoming succesful. I have known that I wanted to pursue a career in photography as a creative from them moment my father put a camera in my hands at the age of 12. It was my dad who pushed me to work through all of my self doubts, and even in the lowest points of my life that motivated me never to give up on turning my passion into a career. It was that support, and his hard working example, even when he was at his lowest of lows that taught me if you want something badly enough you will work hard enough to get it or make it happen.
Self doubt is destructive. If you tell yourself success wont happen for you, that there are other creatives better than you, that you cant survive without a security blanket of a full or part-time job outside of your creative work that is going to be your reality. Taking that leap, and trusting in your talents and business knowledge to become a full time creative is scary. You hope you will be able to pay your bills, and when you don’t get that consistent paycheck and you live on your single income that self doubt is always in the back of your head. I had been working for years for someone else and doing photography on the side or in my free time not understanding why it wasn’t taking off the way I wanted it to. It wasn’t until I had a phone call with one of my fathers friends who happens to also be a photographer who basically told me to pull my head out of my ass and asked me “Sarah what is the worst thing that can happen if you fail? You would just have to go back and get a job.” Granted I had saved every penny my photography had made me for a whole year before going full-time just so I had that finical security before taking that giant step. The prospect of failure is scary but the regret of not giving your passion every single ounce of time and effort will lead you to wondering in the future if you had never given yourself the chance if you ever could have been succesful at all.
I believe that if I would have stepped out of my comfort zone sooner and become a full time photographer I would have gotten to where I am in my career faster. You have to have the time and the energy to make anything grow. Its like a garden, you cant expect a fruitful harvest by just planting your seeds and watering it once every few weeks. A lot of the time you have to do things you don’t want to do to be succesful and make a full time living. You have to pull those all nighters, get out of your comfort zone and just put in the work and do it. Nothing good comes easy it comes through a lot of dedication and work.

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 come from a fairly small town surrounded by some of the most epic Colorado mountains in the state. My first time ever taking photos with a DSLR camera was in these mountains with my dad while he was taking wildflower photos for the county fair. I owe all of my passion for photography to him. Seeing him get excited about the clarity of his focal point of a flower, getting a shot of a bear in Yellowstone at sunrise, or an awesome reflective image of ducks along a river made me fall in love with capturing what I was passionate about: moments between two people & traveling to gorgeous places. As cheesy as it sounds I love, love. I am a huge hopeless romantic and getting to document a love between two people that wont ever be that same kind of love again is special to me. Love is forever changing and thats what makes it so special. There is nothing more fun to me than traveling to a beautiful location with my clients and getting them to laugh, interact and showcase some of their own special love that they share. It is almost a challenge to get people out of their shells, be real and have candid moments between each other, so you can really feel the love that they have for each other through the images. I want people to see my work and know how important it is to me that my clients have fun and really be themselves in these awesome places. I am so obsessed with creating an environment for my clients where they can be comfortable so I can do my job and document the love they have for each other in that time of their lives. I don’t take myself too seriously at all and my imagery really is for the wildly in love.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Social media is such an insane resource. There are multiple ways to advertise and market yourself and not just by paying for an add. Geo-tags and location hashtags are the ket to my success in getting to travel and document these couples. Instagram isn’t every creatives ticket to success but it was mine. My ideal clients come from instagram from searching in the hashtag world to find a photographer who’s work resinates with them. When I want to get booked in a certain location I first have to go there and take images there. That’s where styled shoots and content days come into play. About 70 percent of the work I share on social media is all work that has been styled with models, dresses, locations you name it. I learned that you have to share the work that you want to create. If you only wanted to photograph newborn babies why would you only ever share senior photos. For myself, I want to travel to amazing places with wildly in love couples so thats just what I showcase on my social media through my images I post and the hashtags I use.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Once again Instagram had been my ticket to success in attracting my ideal clients. For some reason the clients who find me on Instagram are so much more adventurous than the ones who find me though google or facebook. It is all about what works for you. I know photographers who their ideal clients find them through google or even Pinterest.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sarahhallweddingphotography.com/
• Instagram: @sarah_hall_photography
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SarahHallPhotography2011/

Image Credits
Sarah Hall Photography