Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in photography but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Mick Hales, Owner of Hales Art LLC., located in Sarasota, FL, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Editorial photography and classic garden prints. My clients are interior designers, architects, landscape architects, shelter magazines, book publishers, and high-end homeowners. Most of what I specialize in are shooting interiors, architecture, and gardens. I have published over 35 coffee table books and multiple magazine stories.
Tell us about yourself
I first got into photography as an escape from life at an English public school. After, I took photography in college and have been freelancing all my life. The constant variety of work and challenge to find work is the blessing and curse of freelance life. This is not the life for the timid because one has to keep ahead of the competition.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Photography is always changing, and trying to adapt to the styles and quirks of the design world means staying flexible. As a business owner from the start, I always took the line of not going into debt but investing when I had the capital built up. That is just the way I wanted to do it. Photography is very seductive for capital outlay, so I purposefully kept my equipment within my resources.
Perhaps the biggest accomplishment was gaining a reputation as someone who would go the extra mile for a client. My published work is extensive, but perhaps what is the biggest achievement is to have met and traveled with some of the greatest creative designers of our time and photographed their work.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
As a freelancer, if a job comes in, one has to take it, so being consistent in other areas of one's life can fall down. Family life and voluntary commitments can be hit hard. Freelancing also has extensive seasons of irregular income and can challenge the most optimistic person.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
Be sure to have the emotional support of your family. Do something which you are passionate about; otherwise, your work becomes unfruitful. Do not give up.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.mickhales.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mickhalesphotography
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mick_hales/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mick-hales-87955716/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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