We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shannon Rae a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Shannon, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I have! (Finally!) It’s been years of careful planning, baby steps, determination, and overtime.

I’ve always worked two jobs at a time. While in college, I did my time in retail and restaurants, lifeguarding, IT and advertising for a local Re/Max office, while also freelancing my artistic hobbies (drawing, graphic design, and photography) on the side. One of my professors linked me up with a product design internship at a home fragrance company, which became my full-time job for 10 years after graduation.

It was an awesome and exciting job: right from the start, I was designing real brand-name products that were being sold in stores worldwide – it was a graphic designer’s dream job. I truly loved what I did. But early on in the second year, my enthusiasm began to be taken advantage of, and I found myself weighed down with much more work than I should have had to handle on my own. It’s a common story in the corporate world: high-pressure, impossible deadlines, unfair politics, late nights, and unpaid overtime. I was juggling the work of two or three people, still on my entry-level intern salary. That’s when my own business turned from a hobby into an escape plan.

Weeknights and weekends, no matter how tired I was from work, I started picking up every photography-related side job I could find. I built up my portfolio, upgraded equipment, and eventually landed a position as a shooter with a large high-end wedding photography studio in Charleston. I started making connections, getting to work with and learn from some of the most talented and successful wedding photographers in the city – the idols I had been following on social media for years – and all the most beautiful venues Charleston has to offer. Eventually, my weekend job was matching and exceeding my day-job salary, and I was finally ready to quit the day job!

Of course, there were a few more major ups and downs throughout the story. If you look up other interviews, you might find some of those details. But if I could tell my younger self one thing, it would be that everything will be ok. We’re going to make it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Honestly, I never thought I would be a photographer – as a kid, I had always preferred drawing and painting.

Sometime during my freshman year of college, a friend from high school got in touch totally out of the blue and asked me to photograph her wedding. I really didn’t know much of anything about photography, but she somehow convinced me to give it a try – no pressure, just get a few snapshots and be there as a friend. I saved up all summer working at Longhorn Steakhouse to buy my first real camera and lens, absorbed every book, article, and tutorial video I could find, and gave it my all.

As a perfectionist, I thought it was terrible. I was ready to sell my camera and stick with drawing… but then a couple weeks went by, and I started getting messages from strangers who had seen the wedding pictures, asking if I would take their pictures too. I told them I didn’t know anything about photography, but if they still wanted me to try, I’d give it my best shot!

Since then, photography has grown from a hobby, to a side job shooting weddings on weekends, to part of my day job shooting advertising for global brands and products sold worldwide, to my own full-time business photographing wherever the journey takes me. And I wouldn’t have taken this path if it weren’t for one good friend who believed in me out of the blue.

Since photographing that first wedding in 2009, I’ve had the honor of documenting hundreds of couples in love around the Charleston area and worldwide. I specialize in weddings and adventurous elopements; but really any photo session, from newborns to seniors to families, is an opportunity to express yourself and create something beautiful that you can be proud of. My goal is always to help you feel comfortable and have fun in front of the camera, to capture authentic emotions, meaningful details, and memories to cherish forever.

Currently based in beautiful Charleston SC, with family in the Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, and Northwest USA, and always making new friends around the world, I have an outstanding flexibility and passion for travel to any destination.

Whether your dreams take you to the top of a mountain at sunrise, the cool mist of a waterfall, the tallest pines of the deepest woods, or the other side of the ocean – let’s get out there. I believe there’s no better way to celebrate a lifetime of adventures together, than with the adventure of a lifetime.

Does your business have multiple or supplementary revenue streams (like a ATM machine at a barbershop, etc)?

Yes, this has been key! I’ve always held an excitement for learning and a drive to creativity, so I’m always naturally growing my skills and experiences, staying flexible and open to new opportunities.

Throughout every aspect of my life and various jobs, I’ve always made conscious efforts to connect with people, and I value those connections more than anything. Many past coworkers are my friends, my inspiration, and my support – and I hope I can always be there for them in the same way. I still regularly pick up widely varying freelance work with connections from previous jobs, and even still do a bit of work for the two home fragrance companies I was previously a full-time employee with – and if I don’t know how to do something, I’m always more than happy to learn and try my best to help out anyway. This lifelong effort toward building a solid, diversified skillset and support system has been the most important resource in growing myself and my business.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Hard work, consistency, openness, and simple friendliness. I’m happy to take on any creative endeavor that I’m able to fit in my schedule, I always give 200% effort, and I have a natural love for people.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://runawayphotographer.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/runawayphotographer
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/travelandtruelove
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/travelandtruelove/

  https://creative.shayrae.com/
  https://instagram.com/shayraecreative/
  https://facebook.com/shayraecreative/

Image Credits

Runaway Photographer