Today we’d like to introduce you to Megan Parry.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Where I started and where I am today has been an ever evolving journey. My undeniable love for nature, obsession in the understanding of light and its role of expressing the narrative are all contributing factors to my business and who I am today.
My journey began in the 80’s as a child fascinated by drawings that showed life, character and realism. I remember seeing a drawing of a lion in a museum that I thought was a photograph. Realizing that this level of realism could be achieved in drawings sparked something in me which lead to a life long journey through art all inspired by a profound connection to nature and in understanding the way light interprets a scene. In my teenage years I began learning photography as a means to capture people and landscapes to draw. I learned very quickly that capturing the light in the scene wasn’t as easy as snapping a picture with a button after developing my first roll of film. This was the defining moment of my life when I first realized that my thought process was completely different from everyone else’s. Instead of seeking a book about exposure and or photography; I needed to learned how to use my camera by understanding how it interacted with light. My first book to understand this was Newton Optics.
“A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light” by
Sir Isaac Newton. After many months of conducting science experiments with color and black and white film, I finally learned how to capture a scene in camera exactly the way I viewed it in real time.
While studying Graphic Design in college, both drawing and photography merged together with the use of Photoshop. This is when my world opened up to photo surrealism giving me a whole new set of inspiration and obstacles to understand regarding light in the new age of digital media.
After graduating college, my career began with a full time position as Art Director for a direct marketing company. My company had its own printing press and this was when my understanding for color, bit depth, color spaces and everything digital came together with all I had previously learned about light.
In 2006 I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy and decided to make a career change to a full time mother. My life took on a new meaning as I started a new project in the documentation of all my son’s milestones. I spent the next six years behind my camera watching my son’s personality blossom. I rediscovered my love for art through capturing all his uniqueness within photorealistic dramatic landscape scenes. As I shared my son’s life with friends and family, I began to get requests to create photo surrealism scenes of other children’s lives. With the birth of my daughter, I realized how much I miss the magical world of mixed media. I went looking for studio space to rent and stumbled upon a commercial space for sale with a huge private outdoor space. That’s when I knew exactly what I was going to do. I purchased the building, began renovations and I guided my imagination to life in the creation of my studios private gardens. This 3000 square ft. space was strategically designed to achieve a diverse range of landscapes at every angle producing the majority of outdoor imagery seen throughout my portfolio. The magical aspects weren’t complete until I added the
various types of butterfly host plants to the gardens which now inhabit ten unique species of butterflies year round. It’s now been over a decade since I began this journey and I look forward to what’s in store next.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There are going to be endless obstacles and challenges in pursuing a career inline with your passion. It’s truly a journey and that was the most difficult aspect to comprehend in the beginning. Honestly, the entire journey has been nothing but learning curves.
Every single job regardless of how knowledgeable you are or the equipment you have, always end up becoming a new learning experience. I thought after a decade of being in business I would have everything worked out but regardless of one’s perfected craft, every job is different. It’s been in my abilities to troubleshoot situations without anyone knowing I’m troubleshooting them.
In my field of photography, I think this is one of the most important abilities to master.
The other struggle along the way, was the realization that family portraiture wasn’t enough to sustain a steady income after becoming a single parent of two. In order to stay a float in this industry, I have had to learn to adapt and outsource a few reoccurring commercial contracts to depend on through out the year to bridge the gap. My first ever contract became my lifeline and dear friend throughout this entire journey. Karys Blake, thank you for always believing in me and providing me with most incredibly unique experiences in this field. From being able to experience your vision bringing the most incredible acro productions to life, to now documenting your children’s amazing journey since birth; you have become an invaluable part of this journey pushing me to heights I never imagined I would experience.
My journey in pursuit of my career in photography has been full of challenges and obstacles along the way. The most valuable part of my success, is understanding that all these obstacles and challenges are truly a gift in disguise.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Embracing my eccentricities and showing my children that they can achieve success by doing what they love has been the hidden secret to my success. We all have our individual little quirks unique to each and everyone one of us. In the creative world, finding the courage to express ourselves through these unique aspects of our character becomes our superpower. It’s allowing yourself the freedom to embrace all the fine details that feed your inspiration. It’s a constant ever evolving process that aids in fresh new ideas individually unique to who you really are in your work. You can find temporary inspiration by constantly following the masses or you can close your eyes to the trends and allow yourself to become authentically inspired by what feeds your soul into the best version of yourself. Consistency in your work can only be achieved through discovering those aspects within yourself that you are most passionate about. To anyone reading this who wishes they could pursue their dreams into a career; you can. The first step is to keep quiet about your ideas in how you plan to begin your journey. Judgment or negative advice from friends and family only shows their inabilities to pursue the journey. Nobody is going to understand your abilities but you. Once you begin your journey you will be guided to individuals who understand your objectives because they too are beginning their journey on the same path. The key is to just begin. It took me 5 years from the initial thought process to actually pursuing the career path into photography. Never stop and think about what you are doing, just keep doing it. Allow yourself to engage in all those little things that inspire you regardless of whether they are in the genre of what you are pursuing. As diverse as these little inspirations are, I promise they will all come full circle and combine together into your first business model that will set you apart from the rest.
