We were lucky to catch up with Susan J recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Susan, thanks for joining us today. Alright, let’s jump into one of the most exciting parts of starting a new venture – how did you get your first client who was not a friend or family?

Before my divorce, I’d been working from home part-time as a medical transcriptionist (a job I didn’t love), raising three kids, and handling all the other things that come with a family (hello, laundry, cooking, cleaning, chauffering, etc!). I had no idea how I was going to jump back into the job market full-time. It was a scary time for me. I thought about my first love, photography, which I never pursued after getting my BA in Visual Arts because I got married and had kids pretty young. After the divorce, I decided to move to the city. The real estate agent helping me find a home was a super nice guy and we spent a bit of time together house hunting. When I talked to him about all my fears of how to get back into the job market and how I loved photography, he said, “Why don’t you do real estate photography?” It had never even crossed my mind. I found my little house, went and bought a digital camera (I’d been shooting film up until then) and a new tripod, and let my agent know I was available to get some photos. He called me soon after and I went and earned my first paycheck for taking photos. I didn’t stay in the real estate niche, but it was exciting to get that first paycheck for doing something I loved.

Susan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Since I was a kid with my first camera (that I bought with babysitting money), I’ve loved getting photos of architecture/cityscapes as well as natural landscapes. I love putting fantasy elements into some of my photos too – like a starry sky in a cityscape. Still-life photos are another love of mine that I’m putting more time into lately, which translates well to product photography. The thing I love most is helping decorate a home or office. It can be harder than you think to come up with the right size, medium, and type of photo to get the mood right when you’re working on creating a piece or pieces for someone’s space. One of the things I’m most proud of is having one of my large-size canvas prints of a beautiful beach sunrise hanging in the chapel at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Terminal F. There’s a surprising amount of work involved beyond the aesthetic considerations in coming up with the right print for a space. The client was very happy with the finished piece for the chapel at the airport and that’s an awesome feeling. So, I sell my prints, but I also do commercial client shoots. For example, I have a client who has me shoot a crowded marketplace with his display screens in the background with the advertisers’ ads on the screen. It’s challenging because I have to get the advertisement crystal clear while getting a lot of people and motion happening all around the screens. It takes lots of shots at different shutter speeds and a lot of compositing to come up with the perfect shot for the client. When I do a job like that, it’s not unusual for me to blend five or more photos together to come up with the perfect shot. It’s labor intensive but I enjoy it. I’m also branching out now into product photography. Everyone will tell you that you have to niche down, and it’s a good idea when you’re getting started, but I have so many things I love doing when it comes to photography that I’m open to shooting lots of different types of things. However, I don’t shoot weddings, and I don’t do corporate event shoots much anymore – I’ve got to draw the line somewhere! Home/office decor, client shoots, and product photography are my three main types of photography.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Interestingly, I wish I’d known a lot more about business when I started my creative journey. I was never that interested in business or marketing, and I got a BA in Visual Arts and Communications with a photography specialization from UC San Diego. Getting the degree in art wasn’t a bad thing but if I had to go back and do it again with the knowledge I have now, I’d get a marketing or business degree first. The marketing and business side of freelancing or owning your own business is tough for most creatives. I can do my creative stuff all day long and love it, and learning new things about photography comes easily because I find it exciting, but I struggle with all the other moving parts of doing my own thing. It’s also easy for me to fall into analysis paralysis because I’m also a writer and I love doing research. I spent a long time trying to figure things out because I was scared to dive in. My sister and my cousin are both very entrepreneurial-minded and they’ve both helped me a lot when it comes to figuring all this out. The advice I’d give for someone just starting out on the journey is to take advantage of all the resources you can, especially business resources, but don’t get paralyzed by them. As the proverb says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” If you really want to do it, you’ve got to take those first steps.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

There are so many strategies for growing your clientele and so many marketers out there selling classes to tell you the best strategies. You can really go down a rabbit hole. It’s different for every business and every niche. Growing my clientele was a struggle for me at first because I had a hard time putting myself out there. I hear the same thing from other creatives. When you put your art out there, it’s a piece of you, and it’s hard when you get rejected. I’ve turned that around for myself and I don’t worry about the rejection anymore. In fact, I look at every rejection as a step getting me closer to my goals. An important thing is to own your own clientele list. If you’re on social media, any platform you’re on can pull the plug in an instant or your account can get hacked and there go all your followers. How will you reconnect with them? One of the most effective strategies for me was putting energy into growing my own client email list. I spent a couple of years doing a monthly print giveaway and advertising it on Facebook. I gathered quite a large number of followers that way, and now I can communicate with them directly through email. It’s nice because I get a lot of feedback from people that way too and people have given me a lot of encouragement.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.susanjphotography.com
• Instagram: @susanjphotography
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susanjphotography
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/susanjphotography

Image Credits
All photos are taken by me – Susan J of Susan J Photography.