Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Clark.
Hi Ryan, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
About 4 years ago I picked up the camera as a hobby, which then grew into the urge to start a photography business to utilize my skills and serve my community.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road traveled for my business has been sort of an off road experience. At the beginning I struggled in finding direction, even as I was getting consistent work. That lead me to be conflicted for a while with the specific style and type of photography I wanted to do. Eventually I had to trim down the work and focus solely on what I focus on now, which is weddings, couples, and family lifestyle photography. At the same time that Covid came stateside, and affected the photography community by essentially shutting down the community for a while, my instagram got hacked and I lost most of my reach and a good portion of my instagram contacts. That was about a year and a half ago, and it’s been a slow process working on building things back up. But that actually gave me some time to do a sort of rebrand and to work with vendors building back up a portfolio that I may not have had the chance to do if none of that had happened.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I specialize in couple photography and family lifestyle, so that basically includes, weddings, engagements, maternity, fun couple shoots, and newborn. I have also continued my hobby photography endeavors into craft beer highlighting Central Florida breweries which you can find at Instagram.com/irresistiblegrains.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
Find local photographers and vendors and work with them. Collaborate with them, go to meet ups, go to classes and don’t be afraid to reach out and ask questions. Youtube is great for self teaching, but nothing beats face to face relationship building.
Contact Info:
- Email: ryanclarkphotography@yahoo.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/ryanclarkphotograph
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/ryanclarkphotograph
