We recently connected with Taylor Emery and have shared our conversation below.

Taylor, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

This is a great question! I think you really just have to want that thing. Being in business is really hard, but the difference between the people that are successful and the people that are not is that just doing the thing! Do it scared, do it even if you don’t think people will think it’s “cool”, do it even if friends or family don’t get it.

Being a business owner is risky so you have to take risks and be ok with falling on your face and maybe being uncomfortable a lot of the time.

Taylor, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Taylor, I am the owner of Burkat Photography – I specialize in lifestyle photography with a focus on maternity, newborn and family photography. I am based out of Central New Jersey and started this business in December of 2022! It has been a wild ride since I started. I am 100% self taught and majored in Marketing at LIM college in NYC. Out of college I was pretty unsure of my path forward but did the corporate thing for a few years knowing it wouldn’t be long term. In 2020, Covid shook things up for me and everyone else. I bought my first real camera and started to learn manual mode and all of the kooky nuances that cameras have. I had really always loved taking photos and did so often on a digital camera and my phone of course – my mom had a camera around growing up so I think I got that bug from her which is a really cool thing to inherit!

I think what sets me apart from everyone else is me! That may sound so silly, but my brand is me, right? Clients hire me and get me! I think my goal is to be authentically myself on all of my platforms and of course, in person with my clients. I am sarcastic and silly and kind and childlike a lot of the time in my personal life, so I sort of just brought that into my brand! People hire me for my work, but I think they return because they genuinely enjoy our time together! I won’t be everyone’s cup of tea and that’s ok! There’s power in that!

I am really proud of the work I am creating and that it feels really authentic to me. It took me a long time to feel like I didn’t care who liked my work, so long as I loved it. I had to learn to believe that rest would come! I am finally in that headspace which is really been a hurdle to overcome for me!

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

I took my first photography job in June of 2022 while I was working for Bed Bath & Beyond in their marketing department. I was answering emails, delivering galleries and all sorts of things on the job (oops!). In August of 2022, I quit that corporate job (they went out of business less than a year later) to nanny 4 days a week and have 3 days to dedicate to photography. Eventually in May of 2024, those 3 days just were no longer enough to keep this business growing the way that I wanted it to and I left the family that I had been with for over a year to pursue photography full time. It has been 8 months as of the beginning of February and I am blown away by how this business has grown. I surpassed my corporate salary in 2024 which was a huge goal of mine to really prove to myself that I could do this.

I can not overstate the impact that having a supportive husband has had on this business. He never once hesitated when I told him what I wanted to do. I don’t think it is talked about enough in the photography world how massive having a supportive partner is to this business. I wouldn’t be doing this at all if it weren’t for him.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding thing about being a creative is that I get to capture people’s most cherished memories and tell a story with them. Recently with the LA fires in the news, it put things into perspective for me and made me understand the weight of the work that I do. Seeing people grabbing their photos as their most important possession(s) really struck me. There is a lot to be said for this line of work and the impact that photos have.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://burkatphotography.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/burkatphotography/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/burkatphotography/