We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Stephanie Marchant. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Stephanie below.

Stephanie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Almost all entrepreneurs have had to decide whether to start now or later? There are always pros and cons for waiting and so we’d love to hear what you think about your decision in retrospect. If you could go back in time, would you have started your business sooner, later or at the exact time you started?

If I could go back in time, I would definitely had started my business sooner. I would have focused on photography and business in college and not getting a Masters in English. I was not focused on what I wanted that early in life. I envy anyone who was and made it happen.

I started my business almost 15 years after moving to Texas in 1999. So sometime in 2013. Digital photography had already taken off and photographers were a dime a dozen. It seemed like everyone wanted to be a photographer; especially a wedding photographer because it was a big paycheck. The economy was great and people were spending money on big weddings and hiring a photographer was (still is) essential. So wedding photographers basically banked.

But I didn’t have a real plan when I started my business. I had gotten to a point in my life where I could take photography back up as a hobby again. Then friends started asking me to take their family photos and it just sort of evolved from there. I sought out other photographers (locally and all over). I stalked their websites and social media pages; studied their work and basically let the masses dictate what I should be doing with my business.

After 10 years of doing this professionally, I’m very pleased with what I’ve accomplished with it, but I’m not done growing. I’m not where I want to be with it. Had I been more focused, I would have started this sooner and quite possibly already been more established.

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

Photography was something I found in high school and was always just a hobby to me. I definitely had a knack for it, but it never really occurred to me that I could make a career out of it. I was also focused on being a movie star, so that’s probably why.

When I finally did dive into it, I really invested myself. I was always signing up for courses or watching YouTube videos. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on workshops. I can’t tell you how many educational courses I’ve bought from photographers selling their master classes. And it wasn’t just tips on being a better photographer. It was also running your business, how to market yourself, how to get more followers on social media, how to price/value yourself, how to get more clients pay your prices. It’s a lot to take in and assess. And I’m still learning today.

All of this eventually led to me getting fed up with thinking I needed to be like other photographers who are successful and finally figure out what makes me happy about photography. I was always shooting families (outdoors only in natural light), busting my butt on a ton of mini sessions and not getting any real satisfaction out of it.

So in the last two years I decided to scale things up and bring my work to the studio. I loved learning about light. The more I learned about how I can control it, the more I never wanted to shoot outdoors again. Not that studio lighting couldn’t be brought outdoors, I just loved being in the studio more.

I also learned how lighting can tell a story. And by controlling it and setting a scene, I felt like I could really capture someone’s persona. This is how I came to doing just headshots and portraits of individuals. My process is to have a conversation with a potential client first, get to know them and understand what they want in their portraits. The goal is to get them to trust me with all creativity but allow them collaborate as well by telling me their story.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

It sounds petty, but photographing famous/important people and having my work published on major platforms is a pretty big goal for me in my creative journey. And maybe this stems back to me thinking I was going to be a movie star one day. Vanity Fair has always been an inspiration for me. I’ve been collecting the Hollywood Issue that comes out in March every year for the last 21 years. I still go back and look through them.

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’m not sure if this is something I learned, but I felt as though if I did things the way other photographers did them, that I would be just like them. That’s absolutely not true and I needed to unlearn that so to speak, I needed to understand that one way isn’t the only way for everyone in this business/industry. I only needed to focus on what worked for me because it’s different for everyone. I finally came to terms with that a couple of years ago when the pandemic started and I was freaking out about how I was going to get a long in my business. I turned to anyone for answers and to just tell me what I needed to do. They all had different responses and that’s when it clicked for me to stop stressing and really focus on me and what I could handle.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://stephaniemarchant.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephaniemarchantportraits/
• Facebook: https://www.instagram.com/stephaniemarchantportraits/

Image Credits
self-portrait by Stephanie Marchant