Change is scary. There’s no getting around that. But change is necessary, it’s constant. It’s the only constant.
For 11 years I worked for the same company. I wasn’t stagnant there, I was given plenty of opportunities to advance and, more importantly, find where I fit best. That turned out to be the marketing department. When I started, the department didn’t exist. I was busy building control cabinets and occasionally getting to go out and help install them. I branched out into project management for a bit too.
At the time, I was in college, working towards my bachelors. My focus at the time was video editing and happened to mention that to the right person. Soon I found myself transitioning into marketing. At this point, there were really only two other people working in the department. I started off filming and editing videos. Most of my knowledge was split between video and photo editing at this point. I knew there was a lot to the Adobe suite, but hadn’t explored much beyond Photoshop and Premiere.
I found myself facing a lot of limitations early on. It was a new department with limited resources, but I wanted to do more. It was time to learn something new to expand our options. I took on learning to produce motion graphics. Because the products were so niche, there weren’t a lot of stock graphics that I could use. From there, I added learning vector illustration to my plate. The boundaries of the content we could produce were beginning to fade away.
The next challenge took me back to my roots. Many of the company’s product photos were out of date as designs were ever evolving. My next hat to wear was photographer. I first started with photography when I was 15, a sophomore taking a photography class in high school. This was 2001, so that meant I was primarily learning on film. My mother gifted me her beloved Nikon FE and I put it to good use. This is where I also began with Photoshop.
The first thing I learned doing product photography is just how little I actually knew. I soaked in as much information as I could, tried new techniques, experimented, left the amateur world behind. Being forced to learn so much in so little time reignited my love of photography. Before long the work being done justified a studio space. At first, just a small corner of a warehouse to do everything. Once content output grew beyond that, I built a multi-use studio area. One part video studio with live streaming, one part photography studio.
Life has a way of catching you off guard, though. In my mind, for years, was a dream of going out on my own, helping people, small businesses, and non-profits grow through media. It was always a “one day,” vision. When your department is downsized, though, you can’t put off making the big life choices any longer. So here I am, ready to put nearly a decade of skill and experience to use. Scared? Yes. Excited? Also yes.