I was reading a Facebook post from a fellow wedding photographer in one of my wedding photographer groups that posed a question, “When did you first consider your photography as a business and not just a hobby.”

After college, I fully expected to land a career in the Advertising world. I was mistaken. For fun, and to take my mind off of the monotonous grind of job hunting that was getting me nowhere, I started taking pictures of friends and family’s. I actually had an advertising/photography business in the beginning. I took “commercial pictures” for small businesses, pictures of babies, graduations, family portraits and a few weddings. I already had a lot of experience as a photojournalist in college and used that knowledge to grow my hobby.

The very first two weddings I ever photographed I did for free. I ran a Craig’s List advertisement where I gave away 2 free wedding photography packages–basically I spent most of the day and evening with the two couples. I was new to the wedding world. I hadn’t ever been a second-shooter, I didn’t even know that was a thing. All I knew was that I needed wedding photos for my portfolio if I wanted to book more weddings.

I put together a website (did the HTML myself) and got to work getting more clients. I got a tax ID and set up a separate banking account (which I supplemented from my own account). That was the day I considered myself a business owner.

That was more than 5-years ago. I’ve never looked back and thought anything else.