We were lucky to catch up with Stephanie West recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Stephanie, thanks for joining us today. 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?

Being self-employed can be scary. Transitioning from a traditional “job” to being a self-reliant entrepreneur can be even scarier. There are risks , of course, but the rewards far outweigh the challenges.

I was a stay-at-home mom of four when I started my business. I had quit my job as a bank teller when I had my first baby because the paychecks I was bringing home wouldn’t even have paid for daycare. It just made sense. My husband at the time had a great job and could cover all of our costs and then some, so that’s what we decided to do.

Fast forward 16 years. It’s 2020 and we’re in the middle of a pandemic and I decided that I didn’t want to be married any longer and I wanted to leave. By this time I was definitely a full-time wedding photographer but the money I made paid for “extras” for our family; zoo trips, school fees, birthday parties and dinners, Christmas, etc. I didn’t pay bills and I also kept my own business running. The idea of moving out and suddenly being the sole breadwinner of my household was terrifying. But this was a leap of faith that felt like it was the only right choice.

In October of 2020 I moved out, into my own house and began having 50/50 custody of my kids with my ex. On days I didn’t have my kids I focused HARD on my business and making money. I knew that if at any point I needed money I could do something extra; an extra session or a day of mini-sessions. Whatever I had to do to keep things going is what I was willing to do. And I’m still willing to do that.

There are times that I’m not completely secure when it comes to money coming in. There aren’t a lot of weddings in Ohio in the winter so that quarter of the year can be challenging, so in the busy times I have to be cognizant of where my money goes and make sure I put some back to last through the slow season. Doing these small things throughout the year allow me to maintain my business all year long.

Being able to earn a full-time living from my business allows me to still be able to stay home with my kids, make my own schedule, and not miss (too many) baseball or softball games or rugby matches. I get to be home in the evenings to make dinner and I still get to take them to school. I wouldn’t trade any of these things for anything in the world. ESPECIALLY a “real job”.

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 am a wedding photographer based in Central Ohio. I started my business in 2008 with nothing but a point and shoot camera and a dream. I started taking photos of my own son when he was little and they were good enough someone asked me to take photos of their kids. And then their friends asked me to photograph THEIR kids. And it snowballed from there. I photographed my first wedding in 2015 with that same point and shoot Kodak camera and made $100 for 12 hours of shooting. Needless to say, I had NO idea what I was doing. But I had the drive and the desire.

I’m fully self-taught, spending hours and hours (and some money invested) in online “courses”, webinars and the like. And countless hours shooting, trial and error…..and even more error. I’d like to mention that I have since upgraded equipment, several times in fact. I’ve added additional camera bodies to my bag as well as now owning 5 lenses that I use on a regular basis.

Learning off-camera flash was a game changer for me. That was the point at which I felt like my photography really stepped into the spotlight and made me stand out from the rest of the photographers around me. I love light. Sunlight, golden hour, a spotlight from a street lamp.. and if there isn’t light, I know how to create it. I have three flashes I use at nearly every wedding I photograph (2 ocf and the other on-camera as a bounce).

Because I’ve been in the industry so long, I have so many connections to other amazing wedding vendors that when a couple hires me as their wedding photographer, they practically have a wedding planner built in. I help create a day-of timeline, link my couples with incredible wedding day teams, and can offer advice on planning and details. My couples know they can trust me to have their best interest in mind and they know that my main goal as their photographer is to give them the wedding photos of their dreams and keep them from being so stressed out on their wedding day that they don’t enjoy their day.

I think the thing I want people to know about me is that I’m a nerdy love geek and I’m 100% empathic so I feel everything that is happening around me. That’s what I love to capture. The emotions, relationships, authenticity and the humanness of weddings.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of my business is knowing that I’m touching the lives of every couple who hires me to photograph their wedding. I’m involved in one of the most intimate days of their lives. I’m stopping time on these integral moments, not only of this one day, but in the lives of everyone in attendance. I’ve had several times where a grandparent or parent of one of my brides or grooms has passed away and they’ve come to me looking for their wedding photos to see if I still have them because I captured “this really great photo of him and we can’t find it”. These are the moments that make what I do worth it.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I think anyone in the photography industry who can manage to maintain a successful business for 16 years, in the age of cell-phone cameras and kit cameras at Best Buy, shows some kind of resilience. We all know the market is saturated with photographers. There have been times where I thought my business wasn’t going to survive or times that I felt like I failed. When you see other photographers booking high-dollar jobs and you’re still making $1000 per wedding, you just can’t see how you could possibly get to where they are. But you pull up your boot straps and you buckle down and you learn, you hone your craft and you put in the work and then you make your prices reflect your value and everything just keeps working out.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.stephaniewestphotography.com
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/stephaniewestphotography
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/stephaniewestphotography